Falk
by Joseph Conrad
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman

FALK  
  
BY JOSEPH CONRAD  
  
  
  
  
  
FALK  
  
A REMINISCENCE  
  
Several of us, all more or less connected with the  
sea, were dining in a small river-hostelry not more  
than thirty miles from London, and less than twenty  
from that shallow and dangerous puddle to which  
our coasting men give the grandiose name of "Ger-  
man Ocean."  And through the wide windows we  
had a view of the Thames; an enfilading view down  
the Lower Hope Reach. But the dinner was exe-  
crable, and all the feast was for the eyes.
  
That flavour of salt-water which for so many of  
us had been the very water of life permeated our  
talk. He who hath known the bitterness of the  
Ocean shall have its taste forever in his mouth. But  
one or two of us, pampered by the life of the land,  
complained of hunger. It was impossible to swal-  
low any of that stuff. And indeed there was a  
strange mustiness in everything. The wooden din-  
ing-room stuck out over the mud of the shore like  
a lacustrine dwelling; the planks of the floor seemed  
rotten; a decrepit old waiter tottered pathetically  
to and fro before an antediluvian and worm-eaten  
sideboard; the chipped plates might have been dis-  
interred from some kitchen midden near an inhab-  
ited lake; and the chops recalled times more ancient  
still. They brought forcibly to one's mind the  
night of ages when the primeval man, evolving the  
first rudiments of cookery from his dim conscious-  
ness, scorched lumps of flesh at a fire of sticks in the  
company of other good fellows; then, gorged and  
happy, sat him back among the gnawed bones to  
tell his artless tales of experience--the tales of hun-  
ger and hunt--and of women, perhaps!
  
But luckily the wine happened to be as old as  
the waiter. So, comparatively empty, but upon the  
whole fairly happy, we sat back and told our artless  
tales. We talked of the sea and all its works. The  
sea never changes, and its works for all the talk of  
men are wrapped in mystery. But we agreed that  
the times were changed. And we talked of old  
ships, of sea-accidents, of break-downs, dismast-  
ings; and of a man who brought his ship safe to  
Liverpool all the way from the River Platte under  
a jury rudder. We talked of wrecks, of short ra-  
tions and of heroism--or at least of what the news-  
papers would have called heroism at sea--a mani-  
festation of virtues quite different from the heroism  
of primitive times. And now and then falling silent  
all together we gazed at the sights of the river.
  
A P. & O. boat passed bound down. "One gets  
jolly good dinners on board these ships," remarked  
one of our band. A man with sharp eyes read out  
the name on her bows: Arcadia. "What a beauti-  
ful model of a ship!" murmured some of us. She  
was followed by a small cargo steamer, and the flag  
they hauled down aboard while we were looking  
showed her to be a Norwegian. She made an awful  
lot of smoke; and before it had quite blown away, a  
high-sided, short, wooden barque, in ballast and  
towed by a paddle-tug, appeared in front of the  
windows. All her hands were forward busy setting  
up the headgear; and aft a woman in a red hood,  
quite alone with the man at the wheel, paced the  
length of the poop back and forth, with the grey  
wool of some knitting work in her hands.
  
"German I should think," muttered one. "The  
skipper has his wife on board," remarked another;  
and the light of the crimson sunset all ablaze behind  
the London smoke, throwing a glow of Bengal light  
upon the barque's spars, faded away from the Hope  
Reach.
  
Then one of us, who had not spoken before, a  
man of over fifty, that had commanded ships for a  
quarter of a century, looking after the barque now  
gliding far away, all black on the lustre of the river,  
said:
  
This reminds me of an absurd episode in my life,  
now many years ago, when I got first the command  
of an iron barque, loading then in a certain Eastern  
seaport. It was also the capital of an Eastern king-  
dom, lying up a river as might be London lies up  
this old Thames of ours. No more need be said of  
the place; for this sort of thing might have hap-  
pened anywhere where there are ships, skippers,  
tugboats, and orphan nieces of indescribable splen-  
dour. And the absurdity of the episode concerns  
only me, my enemy Falk, and my friend Hermann.
  
There seemed to be something like peculiar em-  
phasis on the words "My friend Hermann," which  
caused one of us (for we had just been speaking of  
heroism at sea) to say idly and nonchalantly:
  
"And was this Hermann a hero?"  
  
Not at all, said our grizzled friend. No hero at  
all. He was a Schiff-fuhrer: Ship-conductor.
That's how they call a Master Mariner in Germany.
I prefer our way. The alliteration is good, and  
there is something in the nomenclature that gives  
to us as a body the sense of corporate existence:
Apprentice, Mate, Master, in the ancient and hon-  
ourable craft of the sea. As to my friend Hermann,  
he might have been a consummate master of the  
honourable craft, but he was called officially Schiff-  
fuhrer, and had the simple, heavy appearance of a  
well-to-do farmer, combined with the good-natured  
shrewdness of a small shopkeeper. With his shaven  
chin, round limbs, and heavy eyelids he did not look  
like a toiler, and even less like an adventurer of the  
sea. Still, he toiled upon the seas, in his own way,  
much as a shopkeeper works behind his counter.
And his ship was the means by which he maintained  
his growing family.
  
She was a heavy, strong, blunt-bowed affair,  
awakening the ideas of primitive solidity, like the  
wooden plough of our forefathers. And there were,  
about her, other suggestions of a rustic and homely  
nature. The extraordinary timber projections  
which I have seen in no other vessel made her square  
stern resemble the tail end of a miller's waggon.
But the four stern ports of her cabin, glazed with  
six little greenish panes each, and framed in wooden  
sashes painted brown, might have been the windows  
of a cottage in the country. The tiny white cur-  
tains and the greenery of flower pots behind the  
glass completed the resemblance. On one or two  
occasions when passing under stern I had de-  
tected from my boat a round arm in the act of tilt-  
ing a watering pot, and the bowed sleek head of a  
maiden whom I shall always call Hermann's niece,  
because as a matter of fact I've never heard her  
name, for all my intimacy with the family.
  
This, however, sprang up later on. Meantime in  
common with the rest of the shipping in that East-  
ern port, I was left in no doubt as to Hermann's no-  
tions of hygienic clothing. Evidently he believed  
in wearing good stout flannel next his skin. On  
most days little frocks and pinafores could be seen  
drying in the mizzen rigging of his ship, or a tiny  
row of socks fluttering on the signal halyards; but  
once a fortnight the family washing was exhibited  
in force. It covered the poop entirely. The after-  
noon breeze would incite to a weird and flabby activ-  
ity all that crowded mass of clothing, with its vague  
suggestions of drowned, mutilated and flattened hu-  
manity. Trunks without heads waved at you arms  
without hands; legs without feet kicked fantasti-  
cally with collapsible flourishes; and there were long  
white garments that, taking the wind fairly  
through their neck openings edged with lace, be-  
came for a moment violently distended as by the  
passage of obese and invisible bodies. On these days  
you could make out that ship at a great distance  
by the multi-coloured grotesque riot going on abaft  
her mizzen mast.
  
She had her berth just ahead of me, and her  
name was Diana,--Diana not of Ephesus but of  
Bremen. This was proclaimed in white letters a  
foot long spaced widely across the stern (somewhat  
like the lettering of a shop-sign) under the cottage  
windows. This ridiculously unsuitable name struck  
one as an impertinence towards the memory of the  
most charming of goddesses; for, apart from the  
fact that the old craft was physically incapable of  
engaging in any sort of chase, there was a gang of  
four children belonging to her. They peeped over  
the rail at passing boats and occasionally dropped  
various objects into them. Thus, sometime before  
I knew Hermann to speak to, I received on my hat  
a horrid rag-doll belonging to Hermann's eldest  
daughter. However, these youngsters were upon  
the whole well behaved. They had fair heads, round  
eyes, round little knobby noses, and they resembled  
their father a good deal.
  
This Diana of Bremen was a most innocent old  
ship, and seemed to know nothing of the wicked sea,  
as there are on shore households that know nothing  
of the corrupt world. And the sentiments she sug-  
gested were unexceptionable and mainly of a do-  
mestic order. She was a home. All these dear chil-  
dren had learned to walk on her roomy quarter-deck.
In such thoughts there is something pretty, even  
touching. Their teeth, I should judge, they had  
cut on the ends of her running gear. I have many  
times observed the baby Hermann (Nicholas) en-  
gaged in gnawing the whipping of the fore-royal  
brace. Nicholas' favourite place of residence was  
under the main fife-rail. Directly he was let loose  
he would crawl off there, and the first seaman who  
came along would bring him, carefully held aloft  
in tarry hands, back to the cabin door. I fancy  
there must have been a standing order to that effect.
In the course of these transportations the baby,  
who was the only peppery person in the ship, tried  
to smite these stalwart young German sailors on the  
face.
  
Mrs. Hermann, an engaging, stout housewife,  
wore on board baggy blue dresses with white dots.
When, as happened once or twice I caught her at an  
elegant little wash-tub rubbing hard on white col-  
lars, baby's socks, and Hermann's summer neck-  
ties, she would blush in girlish confusion, and rais-  
ing her wet hands greet me from afar with many  
friendly nods. Her sleeves would be rolled up to  
the elbows, and the gold hoop of her wedding ring  
glittered among the soapsuds. Her voice was  
pleasant, she had a serene brow, smooth bands of  
very fair hair, and a good-humoured expression of  
the eyes. She was motherly and moderately talka-  
tive. When this simple matron smiled, youthful  
dimples broke out on her fresh broad cheeks. Her-  
mann's niece on the other hand, an orphan and very  
silent, I never saw attempt a smile. This, however,  
was not gloom on her part but the restraint of  
youthful gravity.
  
They had carried her about with them for the  
last three years, to help with the children and be  
company for Mrs. Hermann, as Hermann men-  
tioned once to me. It had been very necessary while  
they were all little, he had added in a vexed manner.
It was her arm and her sleek head that I had  
glimpsed one morning, through the stern-windows  
of the cabin, hovering over the pots of fuchsias and  
mignonette; but the first time I beheld her full  
length I surrendered to her proportions. They fix  
her in my mind, as great beauty, great intelligence,  
quickness of wit or kindness of heart might have  
made some her other woman equally memorable.
  
With her it was form and size. It was her physi-  
cal personality that had this imposing charm. She  
might have been witty, intelligent, and kind to an  
exceptional degree. I don't know, and this is not to  
the point. All I know is that she was built on a  
magnificent scale. Built is the only word. She was  
constructed, she was erected, as it were, with a regal  
lavishness. It staggered you to see this reckless ex-  
penditure of material upon a chit of a girl. She  
was youthful and also perfectly mature, as though  
she had been some fortunate immortal. She was  
heavy too, perhaps, but that's nothing. It only  
added to that notion of permanence. She was bare-  
ly nineteen. But such shoulders! Such round  
arms! Such a shadowing forth of mighty limbs  
when with three long strides she pounced across the  
deck upon the overturned Nicholas--it's perfectly  
indescribable! She seemed a good, quiet girl, vigi-  
lant as to Lena's needs, Gustav's tumbles, the state  
of Carl's dear little nose--conscientious, hardwork-  
ing, and all that. But what magnificent hair she  
had! Abundant, long, thick, of a tawny colour.
It had the sheen of precious metals. She wore it  
plaited tightly into one single tress hanging girl-  
ishly down her back and its end reached down to  
her waist. The massiveness of it surprised you.
On my word it reminded one of a club. Her face  
was big, comely, of an unruffled expression. She  
had a good complexion, and her blue eyes were so  
pale that she appeared to look at the world with  
the empty white candour of a statue. You could  
not call her good-looking. It was something much  
more impressive. The simplicity of her apparel,  
the opulence of her form, her imposing stature,  
and the extraordinary sense of vigorous life that  
seemed to emanate from her like a perfume exhaled  
by a flower, made her beautiful with a beauty of a  
rustic and olympian order. To watch her reaching  
up to the clothes-line with both arms raised high  
above her head, caused you to fall a musing in a  
strain of pagan piety. Excellent Mrs. Hermann's  
baggy cotton gowns had some sort of rudimentary  
frills at neck and bottom, but this girl's print frocks  
hadn't even a wrinkle; nothing but a few straight  
folds in the skirt falling to her feet, and these, when  
she stood still, had a severe and statuesque quality.
She was inclined naturally to be still whether sit-  
ting or standing. However, I don't mean to say  
she was statuesque. She was too generously alive;  
but she could have stood for an allegoric statue of  
the Earth. I don't mean the worn-out earth of our  
possession, but a young Earth, a virginal planet  
undisturbed by the vision of a future teeming with  
the monstrous forms of life and death, clamorous  
with the cruel battles of hunger and thought.
  
The worthy Hermann himself was not very en-  
tertaining, though his English was fairly compre-  
hensible. Mrs. Hermann, who always let off one  
speech at least at me in an hospitable, cordial tone  
(and in Platt-Deutsch I suppose) I could not un-  
derstand. As to their niece, however satisfactory  
to look upon (and she inspired you somehow with  
a hopeful view as to the prospects of mankind)  
she was a modest and silent presence, mostly en-  
gaged in sewing, only now and then, as I observed,  
falling over that work into a state of maidenly  
meditation. Her aunt sat opposite her, sewing also,  
with her feet propped on a wooden footstool. On  
the other side of the deck Hermann and I would  
get a couple of chairs out of the cabin and settle  
down to a smoking match, accompanied at long in-  
tervals by the pacific exchange of a few words. I  
came nearly every evening. Hermann I would find  
in his shirt sleeves. As soon as he returned from  
the shore on board his ship he commenced operations  
by taking off his coat; then he put on his head an  
embroidered round cap with a tassel, and changed  
his boots for a pair of cloth slippers. Afterwards  
he smoked at the cabin-door, looking at his children  
with an air of civic virtue, till they got caught one  
after another and put to bed in various staterooms.
Lastly, we would drink some beer in the cabin, which  
was furnished with a wooden table on cross legs, and  
with black straight-backed chairs--more like a farm  
kitchen than a ship's cuddy. The sea and all nauti-  
cal affairs seemed very far removed from the hos-  
pitality of this exemplary family.
  
And I liked this because I had a rather worrying  
time on board my own ship. I had been appointed  
ex-officio by the British Consul to take charge of  
her after a man who had died suddenly, leaving for  
the guidance of his successor some suspiciously un-  
receipted bills, a few dry-dock estimates hinting at  
bribery, and a quantity of vouchers for three years'  
extravagant expenditure; all these mixed up to-  
gether in a dusty old violin-case lined with ruby  
velvet. I found besides a large account-book,  
which, when opened, hopefully turned out to my  
infinite consternation to be filled with verses--page  
after page of rhymed doggerel of a jovial and im-  
proper character, written in the neatest minute hand  
I ever did see. In the same fiddle-case a photograph  
of my predecessor, taken lately in Saigon, repre-  
sented in front of a garden view, and in company  
of a female in strange draperies, an elderly, squat,  
rugged man of stern aspect in a clumsy suit of black  
broadcloth, and with the hair brushed forward above  
the temples in a manner reminding one of a boar's  
tusks. Of a fiddle, however, the only trace on board  
was the case, its empty husk as it were; but of the  
two last freights the ship had indubitably earned  
of late, there were not even the husks left. It was  
impossible to say where all that money had gone to.
It wasn't on board. It had not been remitted home;  
for a letter from the owners, preserved in a desk  
evidently by the merest accident, complained mildly  
enough that they had not been favoured by a  
scratch of the pen for the last eighteen months.
There were next to no stores on board, not an inch  
of spare rope or a yard of canvas. The ship had  
been run bare, and I foresaw no end of difficulties  
before I could get her ready for sea.
  
As I was young then--not thirty yet--I took  
myself and my troubles very seriously. The old  
mate, who had acted as chief mourner at the cap-  
tain's funeral, was not particularly pleased at my  
coming. But the fact is the fellow was not legally  
qualified for command, and the Consul was bound,  
if at all possible, to put a properly certificated man  
on board. As to the second mate, all I can say his  
name was Tottersen, or something like that. His  
practice was to wear on his head, in that tropical  
climate, a mangy fur cap. He was, without excep-  
tion, the stupidest man I had ever seen on board  
ship. And he looked it too. He looked so con-  
foundedly stupid that it was a matter of surprise  
for me when he answered to his name.
  
I drew no great comfort from their company, to  
say the least of it; while the prospect of making a  
long sea passage with those two fellows was depress-  
ing. And my other thoughts in solitude could not  
be of a gay complexion. The crew was sickly, the  
cargo was coming very slow; I foresaw I would  
have lots of trouble with the charterers, and doubted  
whether they would advance me enough money for  
the ship's expenses. Their attitude towards me was  
unfriendly. Altogether I was not getting on. I  
would discover at odd times (generally about mid-  
night) that I was totally inexperienced, greatly ig-  
norant of business, and hopelessly unfit for any  
sort of command; and when the steward had to be  
taken to the hospital ill with choleraic symptoms I  
felt bereaved of the only decent person at the after  
end of the ship. He was fully expected to recover,  
but in the meantime had to be replaced by some sort  
of servant. And on the recommendation of a cer-  
tain Schomberg, the proprietor of the smaller of  
the two hotels in the place, I engaged a Chinaman.
Schomberg, a brawny, hairy Alsatian, and an awful  
gossip, assured me that it was all right. "First-  
class boy that. Came in the suite of his Excellency  
Tseng the Commissioner--you know. His Excel-  
lency Tseng lodged with me here for three weeks."  
  
He mouthed the Chinese Excellency at me with  
great unction, though the specimen of the "suite"  
did not seem very promising. At the time, however,  
I did not know what an untrustworthy humbug  
Schomberg was. The "boy" might have been forty  
or a hundred and forty for all you could tell--  
one of those Chinamen of the death's-head type of  
face and completely inscrutable. Before the end of  
the third day he had revealed himself as a confirmed  
opium-smoker, a gambler, a most audacious thief,  
and a first-class sprinter. When he departed at the  
top of his speed with thirty-two golden sovereigns  
of my own hard-earned savings it was the last straw.
I had reserved that money in case my difficulties  
came to the worst. Now it was gone I felt as poor  
and naked as a fakir. I clung to my ship, for all  
the bother she caused me, but what I could not bear  
were the long lonely evenings in her cuddy, where  
the atmosphere, made smelly by a leaky lamp, was  
agitated by the snoring of the mate. That fellow  
shut himself up in his stuffy cabin punctually at  
eight, and made gross and revolting noises like a  
water-logged trump. It was odious not to be able  
to worry oneself in comfort on board one's own  
ship. Everything in this world, I reflected, even  
the command of a nice little barque, may be made  
a delusion and a snare for the unwary spirit of  
pride in man.
  
From such reflections I was glad to make any es-  
cape on board that Bremen Diana. There appar-  
ently no whisper of the world's iniquities had ever  
penetrated. And yet she lived upon the wide sea:
and the sea tragic and comic, the sea with its horrors  
and its peculiar scandals, the sea peopled by men  
and ruled by iron necessity is indubitably a part of  
the world. But that patriarchal old tub, like some  
saintly retreat, echoed nothing of it. She was world  
proof. Her venerable innocence apparently had  
put a restraint on the roaring lusts of the sea. And  
yet I have known the sea too long to believe in its  
respect for decency. An elemental force is ruthlessly  
frank. It may, of course, have been Hermann's  
skilful seamanship, but to me it looked as if the al-  
lied oceans had refrained from smashing these high  
bulwarks, unshipping the lumpy rudder, frighten-  
ing the children, and generally opening this fam-  
ily's eyes out of sheer reticence. It looked like reti-  
cence. The ruthless disclosure was in the end left  
for a man to make; a man strong and elemental  
enough and driven to unveil some secrets of the sea  
by the power of a simple and elemental desire.
  
This, however, occurred much later, and mean-  
time I took sanctuary in that serene old ship early  
every evening. The only person on board that  
seemed to be in trouble was little Lena, and in due  
course I perceived that the health of the rag-doll  
was more than delicate. This object led a sort of  
"in extremis" existence in a wooden box placed  
against the starboard mooring-bitts, tended and  
nursed with the greatest sympathy and care by all  
the children, who greatly enjoyed pulling long faces  
and moving with hushed footsteps. Only the baby  
--Nicholas--looked on with a cold, ruffianly leer,  
as if he had belonged to another tribe altogether.
Lena perpetually sorrowed over the box, and all of  
them were in deadly earnest. It was wonderful the  
way these children would work up their compassion  
for that bedraggled thing I wouldn't have touched  
with a pair of tongs. I suppose they were exercis-  
ing and developing their racial sentimentalism by  
the means of that dummy. I was only surprised  
that Mrs. Hermann let Lena cherish and hug that  
bundle of rags to that extent, it was so disreputably  
and completely unclean. But Mrs. Hermann would  
raise her fine womanly eyes from her needlework to  
look on with amused sympathy, and did not seen to  
see it, somehow, that this object of affection was a  
disgrace to the ship's purity. Purity, not cleanli-  
ness, is the word. It was pushed so far that I seemed  
to detect in this too a sentimental excess, as if dirt  
had been removed in very love. It is impossible to  
give you an idea of such a meticulous neatness. It  
was as if every morning that ship had been ardu-  
ously explored with--with toothbrushes. Her very  
bowsprit three times a week had its toilette made  
with a cake of soap and a piece of soft flannel. Ar-  
rayed--I MUST say arrayed--arrayed artlessly in  
dazzling white paint as to wood and dark green as  
to ironwork the simple-minded distribution of these  
colours evoked the images of simple-minded peace,  
of arcadian felicity; and the childish comedy of  
disease and sorrow struck me sometimes as an abom-  
inably real blot upon that ideal state.
  
I enjoyed it greatly, and on my part I brought  
a little mild excitement into it. Our intimacy arose  
from the pursuit of that thief. It was in the even-  
ing, and Hermann, who, contrary to his habits, had  
stayed on shore late that day, was extricating him-  
self backwards out of a little gharry on the river  
bank, opposite his ship, when the hunt passed.
Realising the situation as though he had eyes in his  
shoulder-blades, he joined us with a leap and took  
the lead. The Chinaman fled silent like a rapid  
shadow on the dust of an extremely oriental road.
I followed. A long way in the rear my mate  
whooped like a savage. A young moon threw a  
bashful light on a plain like a monstrous waste  
ground: the architectural mass of a Buddhist tem-  
ple far away projected itself in dead black on the  
sky. We lost the thief of course; but in my disap-  
pointment I had to admire Hermann's presence of  
mind. The velocity that stodgy man developed in  
the interests of a complete stranger earned my  
warm gratitude--there was something truly cordial  
in his exertions.
  
He seemed as vexed as myself at our failure, and  
would hardly listen to my thanks. He said it was  
"nothings," and invited me on the spot to come on  
board his ship and drink a glass of beer with him.
We poked sceptically for a while amongst the  
bushes, peered without conviction into a ditch or  
two. There was not a sound: patches of slime glim-  
mered feebly amongst the reeds. Slowly we trudged  
back, drooping under the thin sickle of the moon,  
and I heard him mutter to himself, "Himmel! Zwei  
und dreissig Pfund!"  He was impressed by the  
figure of my loss. For a long time we had ceased to  
hear the mate's whoops and yells.
  
Then he said to me, "Everybody has his troub-  
les," and as we went on remarked that he would  
never have known anything of mine hadn't he by an  
extraordinary chance been detained on shore by  
Captain Falk. He didn't like to stay late ashore--  
he added with a sigh. The something doleful in his  
tone I put to his sympathy with my misfortune, of  
course.
  
On board the Diana Mrs. Hermann's fine eyes  
expressed much interest and commiseration. We  
had found the two women sewing face to face under  
the open skylight in the strong glare of the lamp.
Hermann walked in first, starting in the very door-  
way to pull off his coat, and encouraging me with  
loud, hospitable ejaculations: "Come in! This  
way! Come in, captain!"  At once, coat in hand,  
he began to tell his wife all about it. Mrs. Hermann  
put the palms of her plump hands together; I  
smiled and bowed with a heavy heart: the niece got  
up from her sewing to bring Hermann's slippers  
and his embroidered calotte, which he assumed pon-  
tifically, talking (about me) all the time. Billows  
of white stuff lay between the chairs on the cabin  
floor; I caught the words "Zwei und dreissig  
Pfund" repeated several times, and presently came  
the beer, which seemed delicious to my throat,  
parched with running and the emotions of the chase.
  
I didn't get away till well past midnight, long  
after the women had retired. Hermann had been  
trading in the East for three years or more, carry-  
ing freights of rice and timber mostly. His ship  
was well known in all the ports from Vladivostok to  
Singapore. She was his own property. The profits  
had been moderate, but the trade answered well  
enough while the children were small yet. In an-  
other year or so he hoped he would be able to sell the  
old Diana to a firm in Japan for a fair price. He  
intended to return home, to Bremen, by mail boat,  
second class, with Mrs. Hermann and the children.
He told me all this stolidly, with slow puffs at his  
pipe. I was sorry when knocking the ashes out he  
began to rub his eyes. I would have sat with him  
till morning. What had I to hurry on board my  
own ship for? To face the broken rifled drawer in  
my state-room. Ugh! The very thought made me  
feel unwell.
  
I became their daily guest, as you know. I think  
that Mrs. Hermann from the first looked upon me  
as a romantic person. I did not, of course, tear my  
hair coram populo over my loss, and she took it for  
lordly indifference. Afterwards, I daresay, I did  
tell them some of my adventures--such as they were  
--and they marvelled greatly at the extent of my  
experience. Hermann would translate what he  
thought the most striking passages. Getting up on  
his legs, and as if delivering a lecture on a phenom-  
enon, he addressed himself, with gestures, to the  
two women, who would let their sewing sink slowly  
on their laps. Meantime I sat before a glass of  
Hermann's beer, trying to look modest. Mrs. Her-  
mann would glance at me quickly, emit slight  
"Ach's!"  The girl never made a sound. Never.
But she too would sometimes raise her pale eyes to  
look at me in her unseeing gentle way. Her glance  
was by no means stupid; it beamed out soft and dif-  
fuse as the moon beams upon a landscape--quite  
differently from the scrutinising inspection of the  
stars. You were drowned in it, and imagined your-  
self to appear blurred. And yet this same glance  
when turned upon Christian Falk must have been  
as efficient as the searchlight of a battle-ship.
  
Falk was the other assiduous visitor on board,  
but from his behaviour he might have been coming  
to see the quarter-deck capstan. He certainly used  
to stare at it a good deal when keeping us company  
outside the cabin door, with one muscular arm  
thrown over the back of the chair, and his big  
shapely legs, in very tight white trousers, extended  
far out and ending in a pair of black shoes as  
roomy as punts. On arrival he would shake Her-  
mann's hand with a mutter, bow to the women, and  
take up his careless and misanthropic attitude by  
our side. He departed abruptly, with a jump, go-  
ing through the performance of grunts, hand-  
shakes, bow, as if in a panic. Sometimes, with a  
sort of discreet and convulsive effort, he approached  
the women and exchanged a few low words with  
them, half a dozen at most. On these occasions Her-  
mann's usual stare became positively glassy and  
Mrs. Hermann's kind countenance would colour up.
The girl herself never turned a hair.
  
Falk was a Dane or perhaps a Norwegian, I  
can't tell now. At all events he was a Scandinavian  
of some sort, and a bloated monopolist to boot. It  
is possible he was unacquainted with the word, but  
he had a clear perception of the thing itself. His  
tariff of charges for towing ships in and out was  
the most brutally inconsiderate document of the sort  
I had ever seen. He was the commander and owner  
of the only tug-boat on the river, a very trim white  
craft of 150 tons or more, as elegantly neat as a  
yacht, with a round wheel-house rising like a glazed  
turret high above her sharp bows, and with one slen-  
der varnished pole mast forward. I daresay there  
are yet a few shipmasters afloat who remember Falk  
and his tug very well. He extracted his pound and  
a half of flesh from each of us merchant-skippers  
with an inflexible sort of indifference which made  
him detested and even feared. Schomberg used to  
remark: "I won't talk about the fellow. I don't  
think he has six drinks from year's end to year's end  
in my place. But my advice is, gentlemen, don't  
you have anything to do with him, if you can help  
it."  
  
This advice, apart from unavoidable business re-  
lations, was easy to follow because Falk intruded  
upon no one. It seems absurd to compare a tug-  
boat skipper to a centaur: but he reminded me some-  
how of an engraving in a little book I had as a boy,  
which represented centaurs at a stream, and there  
was one, especially in the foreground, prancing bow  
and arrows in hand, with regular severe features  
and an immense curled wavy beard, flowing down  
his breast. Falk's face reminded me of that cen-  
taur. Besides, he was a composite creature. Not  
a man-horse, it is true, but a man-boat. He lived  
on board his tug, which was always dashing up and  
down the river from early morn till dewy eve.
  
In the last rays of the setting sun, you could pick  
out far away down the reach his beard borne high  
up on the white structure, foaming up stream to  
anchor for the night. There was the white-clad  
man's body, and the rich brown patch of the hair,  
and nothing below the waist but the 'thwart-ship  
white lines of the bridge-screens, that lead the eye  
to the sharp white lines of the bows cleaving the  
muddy water of the river.
  
Separated from his boat to me at least he seemed  
incomplete. The tug herself without his head and  
torso on the bridge looked mutilated as it were.
But he left her very seldom. All the time I re-  
mained in harbour I saw him only twice on shore.
On the first occasion it was at my charterers, where  
he came in misanthropically to get paid for towing  
out a French barque the day before. The second  
time I could hardly believe my eyes, for I beheld  
him reclining under his beard in a cane-bottomed  
chair in the billiard-room of Schomberg's hotel.
  
It was very funny to see Schomberg ignoring  
him pointedly. The artificiality of it contrasted  
strongly with Falk's natural unconcern. The big  
Alsatian talked loudly with his other customers, go-  
ing from one little table to the other, and passing  
Falk's place of repose with his eyes fixed straight  
ahead. Falk sat there with an untouched glass at  
his elbow. He must have known by sight and name  
every white man in the room, but he never addressed  
a word to anybody. He acknowledged my presence  
by a drop of his eyelids, and that was all. Sprawl-  
ing there in the chair, he would, now and again,  
draw the palms of both his hands down his face,  
giving at the same time a slight, almost impercepti-  
ble, shudder.
  
It was a habit he had, and of course I was per-  
fectly familiar with it, since you could not remain  
an hour in his company without being made to won-  
der at such a movement breaking some long period  
of stillness. it was a passionate and inexplicable  
gesture. He used to make it at all sorts of times;  
as likely as not after he had been listening to little  
Lena's chatter about the suffering doll, for instance.
The Hermann children always besieged him about  
his legs closely, though, in a gentle way, he shrank  
from them a little. He seemed, however, to feel a  
great affection for the whole family. For Hermann  
himself especially. He sought his company. In  
this case, for instance, he must have been waiting  
for him, because as soon as he appeared Falk rose  
hastily, and they went out together. Then Schom-  
berg expounded in my hearing to three or four  
people his theory that Falk was after Captain Her-  
mann's niece, and asserted confidently that nothing  
would come of it. It was the same last year when  
Captain Hermann was loading here, he said.
  
Naturally, I did not believe Schomberg, but I  
own that for a time I observed closely what went  
on. All I discovered was some impatience on Her-  
mann's part. At the sight of Falk, stepping over  
the gangway, the excellent man would begin to  
mumble and chew between his teeth something that  
sounded like German swear-words. However, as  
I've said, I'm not familiar with the language, and  
Hermann's soft, round-eyed countenance remained  
unchanged. Staring stolidly ahead he greeted  
him with, "Wie gehts," or in English, "How are  
you?" with a throaty enunciation. The girl would  
look up for an instant and move her lips slightly:
Mrs. Hermann let her hands rest on her lap to talk  
volubly to him for a minute or so in her pleasant  
voice before she went on with her sewing again.
Falk would throw himself into a chair, stretch his  
big legs, as like as not draw his hands down his face  
passionately. As to myself, he was not pointedly  
impertinent: it was rather as though he could not  
be bothered with such trifles as my existence; and  
the truth is that being a monopolist he was under  
no necessity to be amiable. He was sure to get his  
own extortionate terms out of me for towage  
whether he frowned or smiled. As a matter of fact,  
he did neither: but before many days elapsed he  
managed to astonish me not a little and to set  
Schomberg's tongue clacking more than ever.
  
It came about in this way. There was a shallow  
bar at the mouth of the river which ought to have  
been kept down, but the authorities of the State  
were piously busy gilding afresh the great Buddhist  
Pagoda just then, and I suppose had no money to  
spare for dredging operations. I don't know how  
it may be now, but at the time I speak of that sand-  
bank was a great nuisance to the shipping. One of  
its consequences was that vessels of a certain  
draught of water, like Hermann's or mine, could not  
complete their loading in the river. After taking  
in as much as possible of their cargo, they had to  
go outside to fill up. The whole procedure was an  
unmitigated bore. When you thought you had as  
much on board as your ship could carry safely over  
the bar, you went and gave notice to your agents.
They, in their turn, notified Falk that so-and-so  
was ready to go out. Then Falk (ostensibly when it  
fitted in with his other work, but, if the truth were  
known, simply when his arbitrary spirit moved  
him), after ascertaining carefully in the office that  
there was enough money to meet his bill, would  
come along unsympathetically, glaring at you with  
his yellow eyes from the bridge, and would drag you  
out dishevelled as to rigging, lumbered as to the  
decks, with unfeeling haste, as if to execution. And  
he would force you too to take the end of his own  
wire hawser, for the use of which there was of course  
an extra charge. To your shouted remonstrances  
against that extortion this towering trunk with one  
hand on the engine-room telegraph only shook its  
bearded head above the splash, the racket, and the  
clouds of smoke in which the tug, backing and fill-  
ing in the smother of churning paddle-wheels be-  
haved like a ferocious and impatient creature. He  
had her manned by the cheekiest gang of lascars I  
ever did see, whom he allowed to bawl at you inso-  
lently, and, once fast, he plucked you out of your  
berth as if he did not care what he smashed. Eigh-  
teen miles down the river you had to go behind him,  
and then three more along the coast to where a  
group of uninhabited rocky islets enclosed a shel-  
tered anchorage. There you would have to lie at  
single anchor with your naked spars showing to  
seaward over these barren fragments of land scat-  
tered upon a very intensely blue sea. There was  
nothing to look at besides but a bare coast, the mud-  
dy edge of the brown plain with the sinuosities of  
the river you had left, traced in dull green, and the  
Great Pagoda uprising lonely and massive with  
shining curves and pinnacles like the gorgeous and  
stony efflorescence of tropical rocks. You had  
nothing to do but to wait fretfully for the balance  
of your cargo, which was sent out of the river with  
the greatest irregularity. And it was open to you  
to console yourself with the thought that, after all,  
this stage of bother meant that your departure from  
these shores was indeed approaching at last.
  
We both had to go through that stage, Hermann  
and I, and there was a sort of tacit emulation be-  
tween the ships as to which should be ready first.
We kept on neck and neck almost to the finish, when  
I won the race by going personally to give notice in  
the forenoon; whereas Hermann, who was very slow  
in making up his mind to go ashore, did not get to  
the agents' office till late in the day. They told him  
there that my ship was first on turn for next morn-  
ing, and I believe he told them he was in no hurry.
It suited him better to go the day after.
  
That evening, on board the Diana, he sat with  
his plump knees well apart, staring and puffing at  
the curved mouthpiece of his pipe. Presently he  
spoke with some impatience to his niece about put-  
ting the children to bed. Mrs. Hermann, who was  
talking to Falk, stopped short and looked at her  
husband uneasily, but the girl got up at once and  
drove the children before her into the cabin. In a  
little while Mrs. Hermann had to leave us to quell  
what, from the sounds inside, must have been a dan-  
gerous mutiny. At this Hermann grumbled to him-  
self. For half an hour longer Falk left alone with  
us fidgeted on his chair, sighed lightly, then at last,  
after drawing his hands down his face, got up, and  
as if renouncing the hope of making himself under-  
stood (he hadn't opened his mouth once) he said in  
English: "Well. . . . Good night, Captain Her-  
mann."  He stopped for a moment before my chair  
and looked down fixedly; I may even say he glared:
and he went so far as to make a deep noise in his  
throat. There was in all this something so marked  
that for the first time in our limited intercourse of  
nods and grunts he excited in me something like  
interest. But next moment he disappointed me--  
for he strode away hastily without a nod even.
  
His manner was usually odd it is true, and I cer-  
tainly did not pay much attention to it; but that  
sort of obscure intention, which seemed to lurk in  
his nonchalance like a wary old carp in a pond, had  
never before come so near the surface. He had dis-  
tinctly aroused my expectations. I would have been  
unable to say what it was I expected, but at all  
events I did not expect the absurd developments he  
sprung upon me no later than the break of the very  
next day.
  
I remember only that there was, on that evening,  
enough point in his behaviour to make me, after he  
had fled, wonder audibly what he might mean. To  
this Hermann, crossing his legs with a swing and  
settling himself viciously away from me in his chair,  
said: "That fellow don't know himself what he  
means."  
  
There might have been some insight in such a  
remark. I said nothing, and, still averted, he  
added: "When I was here last year he was just  
the same."  An eruption of tobacco smoke envel-  
oped his head as if his temper had exploded like  
gunpowder.
  
I had half a mind to ask him point blank whether  
he, at least, didn't know why Falk, a notoriously  
unsociable man, had taken to visiting his ship with  
such assiduity. After all, I reflected suddenly, it  
was a most remarkable thing. I wonder now what  
Hermann would have said. As it turned out he  
didn't let me ask. Forgetting all about Falk ap-  
parently, he started a monologue on his plans for  
the future: the selling of the ship, the going home;  
and falling into a reflective and calculating mood  
he mumbled between regular jets of smoke about  
the expense. The necessity of disbursing passage  
money for all his tribe seemed to disturb him in a  
manner that was the more striking because other-  
wise he gave no signs of a miserly disposition. And  
yet he fussed over the prospect of that voyage home  
in a mail boat like a sedentary grocer who has made  
up his mind to see the world. He was racially thrifty  
I suppose, and for him there must have been a great  
novelty in finding himself obliged to pay for travel-  
ling--for sea travelling which was the normal state  
of life for the family--from the very cradle for  
most of them. I could see he grudged prospectively  
every single shilling which must be spent so absurd-  
ly. It was rather funny. He would become doleful  
over it, and then again, with a fretful sigh, he would  
suppose there was nothing for it now but to take  
three second-class tickets--and there were the four  
children to pay for besides. A lot of money that  
to spend at once. A big lot of money.
  
I sat with him listening (not for the first time)  
to these heart-searchings till I grew thoroughly  
sleepy, and then I left him and turned in on board  
my ship. At daylight I was awakened by a yelping  
of shrill voices, accompanied by a great commotion  
in the water, and the short, bullying blasts of a  
steam-whistle. Falk with his tug had come for me.
  
I began to dress. It was remarkable that the  
answering noise on board my ship together with the  
patter of feet above my head ceased suddenly. But  
I heard more remote guttural cries which seemed to  
express surprise and annoyance. Then the voice of  
my mate reached me howling expostulations to  
somebody at a distance. Other voices joined, ap-  
parently indignant; a chorus of something that  
sounded like abuse replied. Now and then the  
steam-whistle screeched.
  
Altogether that unnecessary uproar was distract-  
ing, but down there in my cabin I took it calmly.
In another moment, I thought, I should be going  
down that wretched river, and in another week at  
the most I should be totally quit of the odious place  
and all the odious people in it.
  
Greatly cheered by the idea, I seized the hair-  
brushes and looking at myself in the glass began to  
use them. Suddenly a hush fell upon the noise out-  
side, and I heard (the ports of my cabin were thrown  
open)--I heard a deep calm voice, not on board my  
ship, however, hailing resolutely in English, but  
with a strong foreign twang, "Go ahead!"  
  
There may be tides in the affairs of men which  
taken at the flood . . . and so on. Personally I  
am still on the look out for that important turn.
I am, however, afraid that most of us are fated to  
flounder for ever in the dead water of a pool whose  
shores are arid indeed. But I know that there are  
often in men's affairs unexpectedly--even irration-  
ally--illuminating moments when an otherwise in-  
significant sound, perhaps only some perfectly com-  
monplace gesture, suffices to reveal to us all the  
unreason, all the fatuous unreason, of our compla-  
cency. "Go ahead" are not particularly striking  
words even when pronounced with a foreign accent;  
yet they petrified me in the very act of smiling at  
myself in the glass. And then, refusing to believe  
my ears, but already boiling with indignation, I  
ran out of the cabin and up on deck.
  
It was incredibly true. It was perfectly true. I  
had no eyes for anything but the Diana. It was she,  
then, was being taken away. She was already out  
of her berth and shooting athwart the river. "The  
way this loonatic plucked that ship out is a cau-  
tion," said the awed voice of my mate close to my  
ear. "Hey! Hallo! Falk! Hermann! What's this  
infernal trick?" I yelled in a fury.
  
Nobody heard me. Falk certainly could not hear  
me. His tug was turning at full speed away under  
the other bank. The wire hawser between her and  
the Diana, stretched as taut as a harpstring,  
vibrated alarmingly.
  
The high black craft careened over to the awful  
strain. A loud crack came out of her, followed by  
the tearing and splintering of wood. "There!"  
said the awed voice in my ear. "He's carried away  
their towing chock."  And then, with enthusiasm,  
"Oh! Look! Look! sir, Look! at them Dutchmen  
skipping out of the way on the forecastle. I hope  
to goodness he'll break a few of their shins before  
he's done with 'em."  
  
I yelled my vain protests. The rays of the rising  
sun coursing level along the plain warmed my back,  
but I was hot enough with rage. I could not have  
believed that a simple towing operation could sug-  
gest so plainly the idea of abduction, of rape. Falk  
was simply running off with the Diana.
  
The white tug careered out into the middle of the  
river. The red floats of her paddle-wheels revolv-  
ing with mad rapidity tore up the whole reach into  
foam. The Diana in mid-stream waltzed round  
with as much grace as an old barn, and flew after  
her ravisher. Through the ragged fog of smoke  
driving headlong upon the water I had a glimpse  
of Falk's square motionless shoulders under a white  
hat as big as a cart-wheel, of his red face, his yel-  
low staring eyes, his great beard. Instead of keep-  
ing a lookout ahead, he was deliberately turning his  
back on the river to glare at his tow. The tall  
heavy craft, never so used before in her life, seemed  
to have lost her senses; she took a wild sheer against  
her helm, and for a moment came straight at us,  
menacing and clumsy, like a runaway mountain.
She piled up a streaming, hissing, boiling wave  
half-way up her blunt stem, my crew let out one  
great howl,--and then we held our breaths. It was  
a near thing. But Falk had her! He had her in  
his clutch. I fancied I could hear the steel hawser  
ping as it surged across the Diana's forecastle, with  
the hands on board of her bolting away from it in  
all directions. It was a near thing. Hermann, with  
his hair rumpled, in a snuffy flannel shirt and a pair  
of mustard-coloured trousers, had rushed to help  
with the wheel. I saw his terrified round face; I  
saw his very teeth uncovered by a sort of ghastly  
fixed grin; and in a great leaping tumult of water  
between the two ships the Diana whisked past so  
close that I could have flung a hair-brush at his  
head, for, it seems, I had kept them in my hands  
all the time. Meanwhile Mrs. Hermann sat placidly  
on the skylight, with a woollen shawl on her shoul-  
ders. The excellent woman in response to my in-  
dignant gesticulations fluttered a handkerchief,  
nodding and smiling in the kindest way imagina-  
ble. The boys, only half-dressed, were jumping  
about the poop in great glee, displaying their  
gaudy braces; and Lena in a short scarlet petticoat,  
with peaked elbows and thin bare arms, nursed the  
rag-doll with devotion. The whole family passed  
before my sight as if dragged across a scene of un-  
paralleled violence. The last I saw was Hermann's  
niece with the baby Hermann in her arms standing  
apart from the others. Magnificent in her close-  
fitting print frock she displayed something so com-  
manding in the manifest perfection of her figure  
that the sun seemed to be rising for her alone. The  
flood of light brought out the opulence of her form  
and the vigour of her youth in a glorifying way.
She went by perfectly motionless and as if lost in  
meditation; only the hem of her skirt stirred in the  
draught; the sun rays broke on her sleek tawny  
hair; that bald-headed ruffian, Nicholas, was whack-  
ing her on the shoulder. I saw his tiny fat arm  
rise and fall in a workmanlike manner. And then  
the four cottage windows of the Diana came into  
view retreating swiftly down the river. The sashes  
were up, and one of the white calico curtains was  
fluttered straight out like a streamer above the agi-  
tated water of the wake.
  
To be thus tricked out of one's turn was an un-  
heard of occurrence. In my agent's office, where I  
went to complain at once, they protested with apol-  
ogies they couldn't understand how the mistake  
arose: but Schomberg when I dropped in later to get  
some tiffin, though surprised to see me, was perfect-  
ly ready with an explanation. I found him seated at  
the end of a long narrow table, facing his wife--a  
scraggy little woman, with long ringlets and a blue  
tooth, who smiled abroad stupidly and looked  
frightened when you spoke to her. Between them a  
waggling punkah fanned twenty cane-bottomed  
chairs and two rows of shiny plates. Three China-  
men in white jackets loafed with napkins in their  
hands around that desolation. Schomberg's pet  
table d'hote was not much of a success that day.
He was feeding himself ferociously and seemed to  
overflow with bitterness.
  
He began by ordering in a brutal voice the chops  
to be brought back for me, and turning in his chair:
"Mistake they told you? Not a bit of it! Don't  
you believe it for a moment, captain! Falk isn't a  
man to make mistakes unless on purpose."  His  
firm conviction was that Falk had been trying all  
along to curry favour on the cheap with Hermann.
"On the cheap--mind you! It doesn't cost him a  
cent to put that insult upon you, and Captain Her-  
mann gets in a day ahead of your ship. Time's  
money! Eh? You are very friendly with Captain  
Hermann I believe, but a man is bound to be pleased  
at any little advantage he may get. Captain Her-  
mann is a good business man, and there's no such  
thing as a friend in business. Is there?"  He  
leaned forward and began to cast stealthy glances  
as usual. "But Falk is, and always was, a misera-  
ble fellow. I would despise him."  
  
I muttered, grumpily, that I had no particular  
respect for Falk.
  
"I would despise him," he insisted, with an ap-  
pearance of anxiety which would have amused me  
if I had not been fathoms deep in discontent. To  
a young man fairly conscientious and as well-mean-  
ing as only the young man can be, the current ill-  
usage of life comes with a peculiar cruelty. Youth  
that is fresh enough to believe in guilt, in innocence,  
and in itself, will always doubt whether it have not  
perchance deserved its fate. Sombre of mind and  
without appetite, I struggled with the chop while  
Mrs. Schomberg sat with her everlasting stupid  
grin and Schomberg's talk gathered way like a slide  
of rubbish.
  
"Let me tell you. It's all about that girl. I  
don't know what Captain Hermann expects, but if  
he asked me I could tell him something about Falk.
He's a miserable fellow. That man is a perfect  
slave. That's what I call him. A slave. Last  
year I started this table d'hote, and sent cards out  
--you know. You think he had one meal in the  
house? Give the thing a trial? Not once. He has  
got hold now of a Madras cook--a blamed fraud  
that I hunted out of my cookhouse with a rattan.
He was not fit to cook for white men. No, not for  
the white men's dogs either; but, see, any damned  
native that can boil a pot of rice is good enough for  
Mr. Falk. Rice and a little fish he buys for a few  
cents from the fishing boats outside is what he lives  
on. You would hardly credit it--eh? A white  
man, too. . . ."  
  
He wiped his lips, using the napkin with indig-  
nation, and looking at me. It flashed through my  
mind in the midst of my depression that if all the  
meat in the town was like these table d'hote chops,  
Falk wasn't so far wrong. I was on the point of  
saying this, but Schomberg's stare was intimidat-  
ing. "He's a vegetarian, perhaps," I murmured  
instead.
  
"He's a miser. A miserable miser," affirmed the  
hotel-keeper with great force. "The meat here is  
not so good as at home--of course. And dear too.
But look at me. I only charge a dollar for the tif-  
fin, and one dollar and fifty cents for the dinner.
Show me anything cheaper. Why am I doing it?
There's little profit in this game. Falk wouldn't  
look at it. I do it for the sake of a lot of young  
white fellows here that hadn't a place where they  
could get a decent meal and eat it decently in good  
company. There's first-rate company always at  
my table."  
  
The convinced way he surveyed the empty chairs  
made me feel as if I had intruded upon a tiffin of  
ghostly Presences.
  
"A white man should eat like a white man, dash  
it all," he burst out impetuously. "Ought to eat  
meat, must eat meat. I manage to get meat for my  
patrons all the year round. Don't I? I am not ca-  
tering for a dam' lot of coolies: Have another chop  
captain. . . . No? You, boy--take away!"  
  
He threw himself back and waited grimly for the  
curry. The half-closed jalousies darkened the room  
pervaded by the smell of fresh whitewash: a swarm  
of flies buzzed and settled in turns, and poor Mrs.
Schomberg's smile seemed to express the quintes-  
sence of all the imbecility that had ever spoken, had  
ever breathed, had ever been fed on infamous buffalo  
meat within these bare walls. Schomberg did not  
open his lips till he was ready to thrust therein a  
spoonful of greasy rice. He rolled his eyes ridicu-  
lously before he swallowed the hot stuff, and only  
then broke out afresh.
  
"It is the most degrading thing. They take the  
dish up to the wheelhouse for him with a cover on it,  
and he shuts both the doors before he begins to eat.
Fact! Must be ashamed of himself. Ask the engi-  
neer. He can't do without an engineer--don't you  
see--and as no respectable man can be expected to  
put up with such a table, he allows them fifteen dol-  
lars a month extra mess money. I assure you it is  
so! You just ask Mr. Ferdinand da Costa. That's  
the engineer he has now. You may have seen him  
about my place, a delicate dark young man, with  
very fine eyes and a little moustache. He arrived  
here a year ago from Calcutta. Between you and  
me, I guess the money-lenders there must have been  
after him. He rushes here for a meal every chance  
he can get, for just please tell me what satisfaction  
is that for a well-educated young fellow to feed all  
alone in his cabin--like a wild beast? That's what  
Falk expects his engineers to put up with for fifteen  
dollars extra. And the rows on board every time a  
little smell of cooking gets about the deck! You  
wouldn't believe! The other day da Costa got the  
cook to fry a steak for him--a turtle steak it was  
too, not beef at all--and the fat caught or some-  
thing. Young da Costa himself was telling me of  
it here in this room. 'Mr. Schomberg'--says he--  
'if I had let a cylinder cover blow off through the  
skylight by my negligence Captain Falk couldn't  
have been more savage. He frightened the cook so  
that he won't put anything on the fire for me now.'  
Poor da Costa had tears in his eyes. Only try to  
put yourself in his place, captain: a sensitive, gen-  
tlemanly young fellow. Is he expected to eat his  
food raw? But that's your Falk all over. Ask any  
one you like. I suppose the fifteen dollars extra he  
has to give keep on rankling--in there."  
  
And Schomberg tapped his manly breast. I sat  
half stunned by his irrelevant babble. Suddenly  
he gripped my forearm in an impressive and cau-  
tious manner, as if to lead me into a very cavern of  
confidence.
  
"It's nothing but enviousness," he said in a low-  
ered tone, which had a stimulating effect upon my  
wearied hearing. "I don't suppose there is one  
person in this town that he isn't envious of. I tell  
you he's dangerous. Even I myself am not safe  
from him. I know for certain he tried to poi-  
son . . . ."  
  
"Oh, come now," I cried, revolted.
  
"But I know for certain. The people themselves  
came and told me of it. He went about saying  
everywhere I was a worse pest to this town than the  
cholera. He had been talking against me ever since  
I opened this hotel. And he poisoned Captain Her-  
mann's mind too. Last time the Diana was loading  
here Captain Hermann used to come in every day  
for a drink or a cigar. This time he hasn't been  
here twice in a week. How do you account for  
that?"  
  
He squeezed my arm till he extorted from me  
some sort of mumble.
  
"He makes ten times the money I do. I've  
another hotel to fight against, and there is no other  
tug on the river. I am not in his way, am I? He  
wouldn't be fit to run an hotel if he tried. But that's  
just his nature. He can't bear to think I am mak-  
ing a living. I only hope it makes him properly  
wretched. He's like that in everything. He  
would like to keep a decent table well enough.
But no--for the sake of a few cents. Can't do it.
It's too much for him. That's what I call being a  
slave to it. But he's mean enough to kick up a row  
when his nose gets tickled a bit. See that? That  
just paints him. Miserly and envious. You can't  
account for it any other way. Can you? I have  
been studying him these three years."  
  
He was anxious I should assent to his theory.
And indeed on thinking it over it would have been  
plausible enough if there hadn't been always the  
essential falseness of irresponsibility in Schom-  
berg's chatter. However, I was not disposed to in-  
vestigate the psychology of Falk. I was engaged  
just then in eating despondently a piece of stale  
Dutch cheese, being too much crushed to care what  
I swallowed myself, let along bothering my head  
about Falk's ideas of gastronomy. I could expect  
from their study no clue to his conduct in matters  
of business, which seemed to me totally unrestrained  
by morality or even by the commonest sort of de-  
cency. How insignificant and contemptible I must  
appear, for the fellow to dare treat me like this--I  
reflected suddenly, writhing in silent agony. And  
I consigned Falk and all his peculiarities to the devil  
with so much mental fervour as to forget Schom-  
berg's existence, till he grabbed my arm urgently.
"Well, you may think and think till every hair of  
your head falls off, captain; but you can't explain  
it in any other way."  
  
For the sake of peace and quietness I admitted  
hurriedly that I couldn't: persuaded that now he  
would leave off. But the only result was to make  
his moist face shine with the pride of cunning. He  
removed his hand for a moment to scare a black  
mass of flies off the sugar-basin and caught hold of  
my arm again.
  
"To be sure. And in the same way everybody is  
aware he would like to get married. Only he can't.
Let me quote you an instance. Well, two years ago  
a Miss Vanlo, a very ladylike girl, came from home  
to keep house for her brother, Fred, who had an en-  
gineering shop for small repairs by the water side.
Suddenly Falk takes to going up to their bunga-  
low after dinner, and sitting for hours in the veran-  
dah saying nothing. The poor girl couldn't tell  
for the life of her what to do with such a man, so she  
would keep on playing the piano and singing to  
him evening after evening till she was ready to  
drop. And it wasn't as if she had been a strong  
young woman either. She was thirty, and the cli-  
mate had been playing the deuce with her. Then--  
don't you know--Fred had to sit up with them for  
propriety, and during whole weeks on end never got  
a single chance to get to bed before midnight.
That was not pleasant for a tired man--was it?
And besides Fred had worries then because his shop  
didn't pay and he was dropping money fast. He  
just longed to get away from here and try his luck  
somewhere else, but for the sake of his sister he  
hung on and on till he ran himself into debt over his  
ears--I can tell you. I, myself, could show a hand-  
ful of his chits for meals and drinks in my drawer.
I could never find out tho' where he found all the  
money at last. Can't be but he must have got some-  
thing out of that brother of his, a coal merchant in  
Port Said. Anyhow he paid everybody before he  
left, but the girl nearly broke her heart. Disap-  
pointment, of course, and at her age, don't you  
know. . . . Mrs. Schomberg here was very friendly  
with her, and she could tell you. Awful despair.
Fainting fits. It was a scandal. A notorious scan-  
dal. To that extent that old Mr. Siegers--not  
your present charterer, but Mr. Siegers the father,  
the old gentleman who retired from business on a  
fortune and got buried at sea going home, HE had  
to interview Falk in his private office. He was a  
man who could speak like a Dutch Uncle, and, be-  
sides, Messrs. Siegers had been helping Falk with  
a good bit of money from the start. In fact you  
may say they made him as far as that goes.
It so happened that just at the time he turned up  
here, their firm was chartering a lot of sailing ships  
every year, and it suited their business that there  
should be good towing facilities on the river. See?
. . . Well--there's always an ear at the keyhole--  
isn't there? In fact," he lowered his tone confiden-  
tially, "in this case a good friend of mine; a man  
you can see here any evening; only they conversed  
rather low. Anyhow my friend's certain that Falk  
was trying to make all sorts of excuses, and old Mr.
Siegers was coughing a lot. And yet Falk wanted  
all the time to be married too. Why! It's notorious  
the man has been longing for years to make a home  
for himself. Only he can't face the expense.
When it comes to putting his hand in his pocket--  
it chokes him off. That's the truth and no other.
I've always said so, and everybody agrees with me  
by this time. What do you think of that--eh?"  
  
He appealed confidently to my indignation, but  
having a mind to annoy him I remarked, "that it  
seemed to me very pitiful--if true."  
  
He bounced in his chair as if I had run a pin into  
him. I don't know what he might have said, only  
at that moment we heard through the half open  
door of the billiard-room the footsteps of two men  
entering from the verandah, a murmur of two  
voices; at the sharp tapping of a coin on a table  
Mrs. Schomberg half rose irresolutely. "Sit still,"  
he hissed at her, and then, in an hospitable, jovial  
tone, contrasting amazingly with the angry glance  
that had made his wife sink in her chair, he cried  
very loud: "Tiffin still going on in here, gentle-  
men."  
  
There was no answer, but the voices dropped sud-  
denly. The head Chinaman went out. We heard  
the clink of ice in the glasses, pouring sounds, the  
shuffling of feet, the scraping of chairs. Schom-  
berg, after wondering in a low mutter who the devil  
could be there at this time of the day, got up napkin  
in hand to peep through the doorway cautiously.
He retreated rapidly on tip-toe, and whispering be-  
hind his hand informed me that it was Falk, Falk  
himself who was in there, and, what's more, he had  
Captain Hermann with him.
  
The return of the tug from the outer Roads was  
unexpected but possible, for Falk had taken away  
the Diana at half-past five, and it was now two  
o'clock. Schomberg wished me to observe that  
neither of these men would spend a dollar on a tiffin,  
which they must have wanted. But by the time I  
was ready to leave the dining-room Falk had gone.
I heard the last of his big boots on the planks of  
the verandah. Hermann was sitting quite alone in  
the large, wooden room with the two lifeless billiard  
tables shrouded in striped covers, mopping his face  
diligently. He wore his best go-ashore clothes, a  
stiff collar, black coat, large white waistcoat, grey  
trousers. A white cotton sunshade with a cane han-  
dle reposed between his legs, his side whiskers were  
neatly brushed, his chin had been freshly shaved;  
and he only distantly resembled the dishevelled and  
terrified man in a snuffy night shirt and ignoble old  
trousers I had seen in the morning hanging on to  
the wheel of the Diana.
  
He gave a start at my entrance, and addressed  
me at once in some confusion, but with genuine ea-  
gerness. He was anxious to make it clear he had  
nothing to do with what he called the "tam piz-  
ness" of the morning. It was most inconvenient.
He had reckoned upon another day up in town to  
settle his bills and sign certain papers. There were  
also some few stores to come, and sundry pieces of  
"my ironwork," as he called it quaintly, landed for  
repairs, had been left behind. Now he would have  
to hire a native boat to take all this out to the ship.
It would cost five or six dollars perhaps. He had  
had no warning from Falk. Nothing. . . . He  
hit the table with his dumpy fist. . . . Der ver-  
fluchte Kerl came in the morning like a "tam'  
ropper," making a great noise, and took him away.
His mate was not prepared, his ship was moored  
fast--he protested it was shameful to come upon  
a man in that way. Shameful! Yet such was the  
power Falk had on the river that when I suggested  
in a chilling tone that he might have simply refused  
to have his ship moved, Hermann was quite startled  
at the idea. I never realised so well before that this  
is an age of steam. The exclusive possession of a  
marine boiler had given Falk the whiphand of us  
all. Hermann, recovering, put it to me appealingly  
that I knew very well how unsafe it was to contra-  
dict that fellow. At this I only smiled distantly.
  
"Der Kerl!" he cried. He was sorry he had not  
refused. He was indeed. The damage! The dam-  
age! What for all that damage! There was no  
occasion for damage. Did I know how much dam-  
age he had done? It gave me a certain satisfaction  
to tell him that I had heard his old waggon of a  
ship crack fore and aft as she went by. "You  
passed close enough to me," I added significantly.
  
He threw both his hands up to heaven at the rec-  
ollection. One of them grasped by the middle the  
white parasol, and he resembled curiously a carica-  
ture of a shopkeeping citizen in one of his own Ger-  
man comic papers. "Ach! That was dangerous,"  
he cried. I was amused. But directly he added  
with an appearance of simplicity, "The side of  
your iron ship would have been crushed in like--  
like this matchbox."  
  
"Would it?" I growled, much less amused now;  
but by the time I had decided that this remark was  
not meant for a dig at me he had worked himself  
into a high state of resentfulness against Falk.
The inconvenience, the damage, the expense! Gott-  
ferdam! Devil take the fellow. Behind the bar  
Schomberg with a cigar in his teeth, pretended to  
be writing with a pencil on a large sheet of paper;  
and as Hermann's excitement increased it made me  
comfortingly aware of my own calmness and supe-  
riority. But it occurred to me while I listened to  
his revilings, that after all the good man had come  
up in the tug. There perhaps--since he must come  
to town--he had no option. But evidently he had  
had a drink with Falk, either accepted or offered.
How was that? So I checked him by saying loftily  
that I hoped he would make Falk pay for every  
penny of the damage.
  
"That's it! That's it! Go for him," called out  
Schomberg from the bar, flinging his pencil down  
and rubbing his hands.
  
We ignored his noise. But Hermann's excite-  
ment suddenly went off the boil as when you remove  
a saucepan from the fire. I urged on his considera-  
tion that he had done now with Falk and Falk's con-  
founded tug. He, Hermann, would not, perhaps,  
turn up again in this part of the world for years to  
come, since he was going to sell the Diana at the end  
of this very trip ("Go home passenger in a mail  
boat," he murmured mechanically). He was there-  
fore safe from Falk's malice. All he had to do was  
to race off to his consignees and stop payment of  
the towage bill before Falk had the time to get in  
and lift the money.
  
Nothing could have been less in the spirit of my  
advice than the thoughtful way in which he set  
about to make his parasol stay propped against the  
edge of the table.
  
While I watched his concentrated efforts with as-  
tonishment he threw at me one or two perplexed,  
half-shy glances. Then he sat down. "That's all  
very well," he said reflectively.
  
It cannot be doubted that the man had been  
thrown off his balance by being hauled out of the  
harbour against his wish. His stolidity had been  
profoundly stirred, else he would never have made  
up his mind to ask me unexpectedly whether I had  
not remarked that Falk had been casting eyes upon  
his niece. "No more than myself," I answered with  
literal truth. The girl was of the sort one necessa-  
rily casts eyes at in a sense. She made no noise,  
but she filled most satisfactorily a good bit of space.
  
"But you, captain, are not the same kind of  
man," observed Hermann.
  
I was not, I am happy to say, in a position to  
deny this. "What about the lady?" I could not  
help asking. At this he gazed for a time into my  
face, earnestly, and made as if to change the sub-  
ject. I heard him beginning to mutter something  
unexpected, about his children growing old enough  
to require schooling. He would have to leave them  
ashore with their grandmother when he took up that  
new command he expected to get in Germany.
  
This constant harping on his domestic arrange-  
ments was funny. I suppose it must have been like  
the prospect of a complete alteration in his life. An  
epoch. He was going, too, to part with the Diana!
He had served in her for years. He had inherited  
her. From an uncle, if I remember rightly. And  
the future loomed big before him, occupying his  
thought exclusively with all its aspects as on the  
eve of a venturesome enterprise. He sat there  
frowning and biting his lip, and suddenly he began  
to fume and fret.
  
I discovered to my momentary amusement that  
he seemed to imagine I could, should or ought,  
have caused Falk in some way to pronounce him-  
self. Such a hope was incomprehensible, but funny.
Then the contact with all this foolishness irritated  
me. I said crossly that I had seen no symptoms,  
but if there were any--since he, Hermann, was so  
sure--then it was still worse. What pleasure Falk  
found in humbugging people in just that way I  
couldn't say. It was, however, my solemn duty to  
warn him. It had lately, I said, come to my knowl-  
edge that there was a man (not a very long time  
ago either) who had been taken in just like this.
  
All this passed in undertones, and at this point  
Schomberg, exasperated at our secrecy, went out  
of the room slamming the door with a crash that  
positively lifted us in our chairs. This, or else what  
I had said, huffed my Hermann, He supposed, with  
a contemptuous toss of his head towards the door  
which trembled yet, that I had got hold of some of  
that man's silly tales. It looked, indeed, as though  
his mind had been thoroughly poisoned against  
Schomberg. "His tales were--they were," he re-  
peated, seeking for the word--"trash."  They  
were trash, he reiterated, and moreover I was young  
yet . . .
  
This horrid aspersion (I regret I am no longer  
exposed to that sort of insult) made me huffy too.
I felt ready in my own mind to back up every asser-  
tion of Schomberg's and on any subject. In a mo-  
ment, devil only knows why, Hermann and I were  
looking at each other most inimically. He caught  
up his hat without more ado and I gave myself the  
pleasure of calling after him:
  
"Take my advice and make Falk pay for break-  
ing up your ship. You aren't likely to get any-  
thing else out of him."  
  
When I got on board my ship later on, the old  
mate, who was very full of the events of the morn-  
ing, remarked:
  
"I saw the tug coming back from the outer Roads  
just before two P.M."  (He never by any chance used  
the words morning or afternoon. Always P.M. or  
A.M., log-book style.)  "Smart work that. Man's  
always in a state of hurry. He's a regular  
chucker-out, ain't he, sir? There's a few pubs I  
know of in the East-end of London that would be  
all the better for one of his sort around the bar."  
He chuckled at his joke. "A regular chucker-out.
Now he has fired out that Dutchman head over heels,  
I suppose our turn's coming to-morrow morning."  
  
We were all on deck at break of day (even the  
sick--poor devils--had crawled out) ready to cast  
off in the twinkling of an eye. Nothing came.
Falk did not come. At last, when I began to think  
that probably something had gone wrong in his  
engine-room, we perceived the tug going by, full  
pelt, down the river, as if we hadn't existed. For a  
moment I entertained the wild notion that he was  
going to turn round in the next reach. Afterwards  
I watched his smoke appear above the plain, now  
here, now there, according to the windings of the  
river. It disappeared. Then without a word I  
went down to breakfast. I just simply went down  
to breakfast.
  
Not one of us uttered a sound till the mate, after  
imbibing--by means of suction out of a saucer--  
his second cup of tea, exclaimed: "Where the devil  
is the man gone to?"  
  
"Courting!" I shouted, with such a fiendish  
laugh that the old chap didn't venture to open his  
lips any more.
  
I started to the office perfectly calm. Calm with  
excessive rage. Evidently they knew all about it  
already, and they treated me to a show of conster-  
nation. The manager, a soft-footed, immensely  
obese man, breathing short, got up to meet me,  
while all round the room the young clerks, bend-  
ing over the papers on their desks, cast upward  
glances in my direction. The fat man, without  
waiting for my complaint, wheezing heavily and  
in a tone as if he himself were incredulous, con-  
veyed to me the news that Falk--Captain Falk--  
had declined--had absolutely declined--to tow my  
ship--to have anything to do with my ship--this  
day or any other day. Never!
  
I did my best to preserve a cool appearance, but,  
all the same, I must have shown how much taken  
aback I was. We were talking in the middle of the  
room. Suddenly behind my back some ass blew  
his nose with great force, and at the same time an-  
other quill-driver jumped up and went out on the  
landing hastily. It occurred to me I was cutting  
a foolish figure there. I demanded angrily to see  
the principal in his private room.
  
The skin of Mr. Siegers' head showed dead white  
between the iron grey streaks of hair lying plas-  
tered cross-wise from ear to ear over the top of his  
skull in the manner of a bandage. His narrow  
sunken face was of an uniform and permanent ter-  
ra-cotta colour, like a piece of pottery. He was  
sickly, thin, and short, with wrists like a boy of ten.
But from that debile body there issued a bullying  
voice, tremendously loud, harsh and resonant, as  
if produced by some powerful mechanical contriv-  
ance in the nature of a fog-horn. I do not know  
what he did with it in the private life of his home,  
but in the larger sphere of business it presented the  
advantage of overcoming arguments without the  
slightest mental effort, by the mere volume of  
sound. We had had several passages of arms. It  
took me all I knew to guard the interests of my  
owners--whom, nota bene, I had never seen--while  
Siegers (who had made their acquaintance some  
years before, during a business tour in Australia)  
pretended to the knowledge of their innermost  
minds, and, in the character of "our very good  
friends," threw them perpetually at my head.
  
He looked at me with a jaundiced eye (there was  
no love lost between us), and declared at once that  
it was strange, very strange. His pronunciation  
of English was so extravagant that I can't even  
attempt to reproduce it. For instance, he said  
"Fferie strantch."  Combined with the bellowing  
intonation it made the language of one's childhood  
sound weirdly startling, and even if considered  
purely as a kind of unmeaning noise it filled you  
with astonishment at first. "They had," he con-  
tinued, "been acquainted with Captain Falk for  
very many years, and never had any reason. . . ."  
  
"That's why I come to you, of course," I inter-  
rupted. "I've the right to know the meaning of  
this infernal nonsense."  In the half light of the  
room, which was greenish, because of the tree-tops  
screening the window, I saw him writhe his meagre  
shoulders. It came into my head, as disconnected  
ideas will come at all sorts of times into one's head,  
that this, most likely, was the very room where, if  
the tale were true, Falk had been lectured by Mr.
Siegers, the father. Mr. Siegers' (the son's) over-  
whelming voice, in brassy blasts, as though he had  
been trying to articulate his words through a trom-  
bone, was expressing his great regret at a conduct  
characterised by a very marked want of discre-  
tion. . . As I lived I was being lectured too! His  
deafening gibberish was difficult to follow, but it  
was MY conduct--mine!--that . . . Damn! I  
wasn't going to stand this.
  
"What on earth are you driving at?" I asked  
in a passion. I put my hat on my head (he never  
offered a seat to anybody), and as he seemed for  
the moment struck dumb by my irreverence, I  
turned my back on him and marched out. His vo-  
cal arrangements blared after me a few threats of  
coming down on the ship for the demurrage of the  
lighters, and all the other expenses consequent  
upon the delays arising from my frivolity.
  
Once outside in the sunshine my head swam. It  
was no longer a question of mere delay. I per-  
ceived myself involved in hopeless and humiliating  
absurdities that were leading me to something very  
like a disaster. "Let us be calm," I muttered to  
myself, and ran into the shade of a leprous wall.
From that short side-street I could see the broad  
main thoroughfare ruinous and gay, running  
away, away between stretches of decaying mason-  
ry, bamboo fences, ranges of arcades of brick and  
plaster, hovels of lath and mud, lofty temple gates  
of carved timber, huts of rotten mats--an im-  
mensely wide thoroughfare, loosely packed as far  
as the eye could reach with a barefooted and brown  
multitude paddling ankle deep in the dust. For a  
moment I felt myself about to go out of my mind  
with worry and desperation.
  
Some allowance must be made for the feelings  
of a young man new to responsibility. I thought  
of my crew. Half of them were ill, and I really  
began to think that some of them would end by dy-  
ing on board if I couldn't get them out to sea soon.
Obviously I should have to take my ship down the  
river, either working under canvas or dredging  
with the anchor down; operations which, in com-  
mon with many modern sailors, I only knew theo-  
retically. And I almost shrank from undertaking  
them shorthanded and without local knowledge  
of the river bed, which is so necessary for the con-  
fident handling of the ship. There were no pilots,  
no beacons, no buoys of any sort; but there was a  
very devil of a current for anybody to see, no end  
of shoal places, and at least two obviously awkward  
turns of the channel between me and the sea. But  
how dangerous these turns were I would not tell. I  
didn't even know what my ship was capable of!
I had never handled her in my life. A misunder-  
standing between a man and his ship in a difficult  
river with no room to make it up, is bound to end in  
trouble for the man. On the other hand, it must  
be owned I had not much reason to count upon a  
general run of good luck. And suppose I had the  
misfortune to pile her up high and dry on some  
beastly shoal? That would have been the final un-  
doing of that voyage. It was plain that if Falk  
refused to tow me out he would also refuse to pull  
me off. This meant--what? A day lost at the  
very best; but more likely a whole fortnight of  
frizzling on some pestilential mudflat, of desperate  
work, of discharging cargo; more than likely it  
meant borrowing money at an exorbitant rate of  
interest--from the Siegers' gang too at that. They  
were a power in the port. And that elderly seaman  
of mine, Gambril, had looked pretty ghastly when  
I went forward to dose him with quinine that morn-  
ing. HE would certainly die--not to speak of two  
or three others that seemed nearly as bad, and of  
the rest of them just ready to catch any tropical  
disease going. Horror, ruin and everlasting re-  
morse. And no help. None. I had fallen amongst  
a lot of unfriendly lunatics!
  
At any rate, if I must take my ship down myself  
it was my duty to procure if possible some local  
knowledge. But that was not easy. The only per-  
son I could think of for that service was a certain  
Johnson, formerly captain of a country ship, but  
now spliced to a country wife and gone utterly to  
the bad. I had only heard of him in the vaguest  
way, as living concealed in the thick of two hundred  
thousand natives, and only emerging into the light  
of day for the purpose of hunting up some brandy.
I had a notion that if I could lay my hands on him  
I would sober him on board my ship and use him  
for a pilot. Better than nothing. Once a sailor  
always a sailor--and he had known the river for  
years. But in our Consulate (where I arrived drip-  
ping after a sharp walk) they could tell me noth-  
ing. The excellent young men on the staff, though  
willing to help me, belonged to a sphere of the  
white colony for which that sort of Johnson does  
not exist. Their suggestion was that I should hunt  
the man up myself with the help of the Consulate's  
constable--an ex-sergeant-major of a regiment of  
Hussars.
  
This man, whose usual duty apparently consisted  
in sitting behind a little table in an outer room  
of Consular offices, when ordered to assist me in  
my search for Johnson displayed lots of energy  
and a marvellous amount of local knowledge of a  
sort. But he did not conceal an immense and scep-  
tical contempt for the whole business. We explored  
together on that afternoon an infinity of infamous  
grog shops, gambling dens, opium dens. We  
walked up narrow lanes where our gharry--a tiny  
box of a thing on wheels, attached to a jibbing Bur-  
mah pony--could by no means have passed. The  
constable seemed to be on terms of scornful inti-  
macy with Maltese, with Eurasians, with China-  
men, with Klings, and with the sweepers attached  
to a temple, with whom he talked at the gate. We  
interviewed also through a grating in a mud wall  
closing a blind alley an immensely corpulent Ital-  
ian, who, the ex-sergeant-major remarked to me  
perfunctorily, had "killed another man last year."  
Thereupon he addressed him as "Antonio" and  
"Old Buck," though that bloated carcase, appar-  
ently more than half filling the sort of cell where-  
in it sat, recalled rather a fat pig in a stye. Fa-  
miliar and never unbending, the sergeant chucked  
--absolutely chucked--under the chin a horribly  
wrinkled and shrivelled old hag propped on a stick,  
who had volunteered some sort of information: and  
with the same stolid face he kept up an animated  
conversation with the groups of swathed brown  
women, who sat smoking cheroots on the door-steps  
of a long range of clay hovels. We got out of the  
gharry and clambered into dwellings airy like  
packing crates, or descended into places sinister  
like cellars. We got in, we drove on, we got out  
again for the sole purpose, as it seemed, of looking  
behind a heap of rubble. The sun declined; my  
companion was curt and sardonic in his answers,  
but it appears we were just missing Johnson all  
along. At last our conveyance stopped once more  
with a jerk, and the driver jumping down opened  
the door.
  
A black mudhole blocked the lane. A mound of  
garbage crowned with the dead body of a dog ar-  
rested us not. An empty Australian beef tin  
bounded cheerily before the toe of my boot. Sud-  
denly we clambered through a gap in a prickly  
fence. . . .
  
It was a very clean native compound: and the  
big native woman, with bare brown legs as thick  
as bedposts, pursuing on all fours a silver dollar  
that came rolling out from somewhere, was Mrs.
Johnson herself. "Your man's at home," said the  
ex-sergeant, and stepped aside in complete and  
marked indifference to anything that might follow.
Johnson--at home--stood with his back to a native  
house built on posts and with its walls made of  
mats. In his left hand he held a banana. Out of  
the right he dealt another dollar into space. The  
woman captured this one on the wing, and there  
and then plumped down on the ground to look at  
us with greater comfort.
  
My man was sallow of face, grizzled, unshaven,  
muddy on elbows and back; where the seams of his  
serge coat yawned you could see his white naked-  
ness. The vestiges of a paper collar encircled his  
neck. He looked at us with a grave, swaying sur-  
prise. "Where do you come from?" he asked.
My heart sank. How could I have been stupid  
enough to waste energy and time for this?
  
But having already gone so far I approached a  
little nearer and declared the purpose of my visit.
He would have to come at once with me, sleep on  
board my ship, and to-morrow, with the first of the  
ebb, he would give me his assistance in getting my  
ship down to the sea, without steam. A six-hun-  
dred-ton barque, drawing nine feet aft. I pro-  
posed to give him eighteen dollars for his local  
knowledge; and all the time I was speaking he  
kept on considering attentively the various aspects  
of the banana, holding first one side up to his eye,  
then the other.
  
"You've forgotten to apologise," he said at last  
with extreme precision. "Not being a gentleman  
yourself, you don't know apparently when you in-  
trude upon a gentleman. I am one. I wish you to  
understand that when I am in funds I don't work,  
and now . . ."  
  
I would have pronounced him perfectly sober  
hadn't he paused in great concern to try and brush  
a hole off the knee of his trousers.
  
"I have money--and friends. Every gentle-  
man has. Perhaps you would like to know my  
friend? His name is Falk. You could borrow  
some money. Try to remember. F-A-L-K, Falk."  
Abruptly his tone changed. "A noble heart," he  
said muzzily.
  
"Has Falk been giving you some money?" I  
asked, appalled by the detailed finish of the dark  
plot.
  
"Lent me, my good man, not given me. Lent,"  
he corrected suavely. "Met me taking the air  
last evening, and being as usual anxious to oblige  
--  Hadn't you better go to the devil out of my  
compound?"  
  
And upon this, without other warning, he let  
fly with the banana which missed my head, and took  
the constable just under the left eye. He rushed  
at the miserable Johnson, stammering with fury.
They fell. . . . But why dwell on the wretched-  
ness, the breathlessness, the degradation, the sense-  
lessness, the weariness, the ridicule and humiliation  
and--and--the perspiration, of these moments? I  
dragged the ex-hussar off. He was like a wild  
beast. It seems he had been greatly annoyed at  
losing his free afternoon on my account. The gar-  
den of his bungalow required his personal atten-  
tion, and at the slight blow of the banana the brute  
in him had broken loose. We left Johnson on his  
back, still black in the face, but beginning to kick  
feebly. Meantime, the big woman had remained  
sitting on the ground, apparently paralysed with  
extreme terror.
  
For half an hour we jolted inside our rolling  
box, side by side, in profound silence. The ex-ser-  
geant was busy staunching the blood of a long  
scratch on his cheek. "I hope you're satisfied," he  
said suddenly. "That's what comes of all that  
tomfool business. If you hadn't quarrelled with  
that tugboat skipper over some girl or other, all  
this wouldn't have happened."  
  
"You heard THAT story?" I said.
  
"Of course I heard. And I shouldn't wonder if  
the Consul-General himself doesn't come to hear  
of it. How am I to go before him to-morrow with  
that thing on my cheek--I want to know. Its  
YOU who ought to have got this!"  
  
After that, till the gharry stopped and he  
jumped out without leave-taking, he swore to him-  
self steadily, horribly; muttering great, purpose-  
ful, trooper oaths, to which the worst a sailor can  
do is like the prattle of a child. For my part I had  
just the strength to crawl into Schomberg's coffee-  
room, where I wrote at a little table a note to the  
mate instructing him to get everything ready for  
dropping down the river next day. I couldn't  
face my ship. Well! she had a clever sort of skip-  
per and no mistake--poor thing! What a horrid  
mess! I took my head between my hands. At  
times the obviousness of my innocence would reduce  
me to despair. What had I done? If I had done  
something to bring about the situation I should at  
least have learned not to do it again. But I felt  
guiltless to the point of imbecility. The room was  
empty yet; only Schomberg prowled round me  
goggle-eyed and with a sort of awed respectful cu-  
riosity. No doubt he had set the story going him-  
self; but he was a good-hearted chap, and I am  
really persuaded he participated in all my troubles.
He did what he could for me. He ranged aside the  
heavy matchstand, set a chair straight, pushed a  
spittoon slightly with his foot--as you show small  
attentions to a friend under a great sorrow--  
sighed, and at last, unable to hold his tongue:
  
"Well! I warned you, captain. That's what  
comes of running your head against Mr. Falk.
Man'll stick at nothing."  
  
I sat without stirring, and after surveying me  
with a sort of commiseration in his eyes he burst  
out in a hoarse whisper: "But for a fine lump of  
a girl, she's a fine lump of a girl."  He made a loud  
smacking noise with his thick lips. "The finest  
lump of a girl that I ever . . ." he was going on  
with great unction, but for some reason or other  
broke off. I fancied myself throwing something  
at his head. "I don't blame you, captain. Hang  
me if I do," he said with a patronising air.
  
"Thank you," I said resignedly. It was no use  
fighting against this false fate. I don't know even  
if I was sure myself where the truth of the matter  
began. The conviction that it would end disas-  
trously had been driven into me by all the succes-  
sive shocks my sense of security had received. I  
began to ascribe an extraordinary potency to  
agents in themselves powerless. It was as if  
Schomberg's baseless gossip had the power to bring  
about the thing itself or the abstract enmity of  
Falk could put my ship ashore.
  
I have already explained how fatal this last  
would have been. For my further action, my  
youth, my inexperience, my very real concern for  
the health of my crew must be my excuse. The ac-  
tion itself, when it came, was purely impulsive. It  
was set in movement quite undiplomatically and  
simply by Falk's appearance in the doorway.
  
The room was full by then and buzzing with  
voices. I had been looked at with curiosity by  
every one, but how am I to describe the sensation  
produced by the appearance of Falk himself block-  
ing the doorway? The tension of expectation  
could be measured by the profundity of the silence  
that fell upon the very click of the billiard balls.
As to Schomberg, he looked extremely frightened;  
he hated mortally any sort of row (fracas he called  
it) in his establishment. Fracas was bad for busi-  
ness, he affirmed; but, in truth, this specimen of  
portly, middle-aged manhood was of a timid dis-  
position. I don't know what, considering my pres-  
ence in the place, they all hoped would come of it.
A sort of stag fight, perhaps. Or they may have  
supposed Falk had come in only to annihilate me  
completely. As a matter of fact, Falk had come in  
because Hermann had asked him to inquire after the  
precious white cotton parasol which, in the worry  
and excitement of the previous day, he had forgot-  
ten at the table where we had held our little discus-  
sion.
  
It was this that gave me my opportunity. I  
don't think I would have gone to seek Falk out.
No. I don't think so. There are limits. But there  
was an opportunity and I seized it--I have already  
tried to explain why. Now I will merely state that,  
in my opinion, to get his sickly crew into the sea  
air and secure a quick despatch for his ship a skip-  
per would be justified in going to any length, short  
of absolute crime. He should put his pride in his  
pocket; he may accept confidences; explain his in-  
nocence as if it were a sin; he may take advantage  
of misconceptions, of desires and of weaknesses; he  
ought to conceal his horror and other emotions,  
and, if the fate of a human being, and that human  
being a magnificent young girl, is strangely in-  
volved--why, he should contemplate that fate  
(whatever it might seem to be) without turning a  
hair. And all these things I have done; the ex-  
plaining, the listening, the pretending--even to  
the discretion--and nobody, not even Hermann's  
niece, I believe, need throw stones at me now.
Schomberg at all events needn't, since from first to  
last, I am happy to say, there was not the slightest  
"fracas."  
  
Overcoming a nervous contraction of the wind-  
pipe, I had managed to exclaim "Captain Falk!"  
His start of surprise was perfectly genuine, but  
afterwards he neither smiled nor scowled. He sim-  
ply waited. Then, when I had said, "I must have  
a talk with you," and had pointed to a chair at my  
table, he moved up to me, though he didn't sit  
down. Schomberg, however, with a long tumbler  
in his hand, was making towards us prudently, and  
I discovered then the only sign of weakness in Falk.
He had for Schomberg a repulsion resembling that  
sort of physical fear some people experience at the  
sight of a toad. Perhaps to a man so essentially  
and silently concentrated upon himself (though he  
could talk well enough, as I was to find out  
presently) the other's irrepressible loquacity, em-  
bracing every human being within range of the  
tongue, might have appeared unnatural, disgust-  
ing, and monstrous. He suddenly gave signs of  
restiveness--positively like a horse about to rear,  
and, muttering hurriedly as if in great pain, "No.
I can't stand that fellow," seemed ready to bolt.
This weakness of his gave me the advantage at the  
very start. "Verandah," I suggested, as if ren-  
dering him a service, and walked him out by the  
arm. We stumbled over a few chairs; we had the  
feeling of open space before us, and felt the fresh  
breath of the river--fresh, but tainted. The Chi-  
nese theatres across the water made, in the sparsely  
twinkling masses of gloom an Eastern town pre-  
sents at night, blazing centres of light, and of a  
distant and howling uproar. I felt him become  
suddenly tractable again like an animal, like a  
good-tempered horse when the object that scares  
him is removed. Yes. I felt in the darkness there  
how tractable he was, without my conviction of his  
inflexibility--tenacity, rather, perhaps--being in  
the least weakened. His very arm abandoning it-  
self to my grasp was as hard as marble--like a limb  
of iron. But I heard a tumultuous scuffling of  
boot-soles within. The unspeakable idiots inside  
were crowding to the windows, climbing over each  
other's backs behind the blinds, billiard cues and all.
Somebody broke a window pane, and with the sound  
of falling glass, so suggestive of riot and devasta-  
tion, Schomberg reeled out after us in a state of  
funk which had prevented his parting with his  
brandy and soda. He must have trembled like an  
aspen leaf. The piece of ice in the long tumbler  
he held in his hand tinkled with an effect of chat-  
tering teeth. "I beg you, gentlemen," he expost-  
ulated thickly. "Come! Really, now, I must in-  
sist . . ."  
  
How proud I am of my presence of mind!
"Hallo," I said instantly in a loud and naive tone,  
"somebody's breaking your windows, Schomberg.
Would you please tell one of your boys to bring  
out here a pack of cards and a couple of lights?
And two long drinks. Will you?"  
  
To receive an order soothed him at once. It was  
business. "Certainly," he said in an immensely  
relieved tone. The night was rainy, with wander-  
ing gusts of wind, and while we waited for the can-  
dles Falk said, as if to justify his panic, "I don't  
interfere in anybody's business. I don't give any  
occasion for talk. I am a respectable man. But  
this fellow is always making out something wrong,  
and can never rest till he gets somebody to believe  
him."  
  
This was the first of my knowledge of Falk.
This desire of respectability, of being like every-  
body else, was the only recognition he vouchsafed  
to the organisation of mankind. For the rest he  
might have been the member of a herd, not of a so-  
ciety. Self-preservation was his only concern.
Not selfishness, but mere self-preservation. Sel-  
fishness presupposes consciousness, choice, the pres-  
ence of other men; but his instinct acted as though  
he were the last of mankind nursing that law like  
the only spark of a sacred fire. I don't mean to  
say that living naked in a cavern would have satis-  
fied him. Obviously he was the creature of the  
conditions to which he was born. No doubt self-  
preservation meant also the preservation of these  
conditions. But essentially it meant something  
much more simple, natural, and powerful. How  
shall I express it? It meant the preservation of the  
five senses of his body--let us say--taking it in its  
narrowest as well as in its widest meaning. I think  
you will admit before long the justice of this judg-  
ment. However, as we stood there together in the  
dark verandah I had judged nothing as yet--and  
I had no desire to judge--which is an idle practice  
anyhow. The light was long in coming.
  
"Of course," I said in a tone of mutual under-  
standing, "it isn't exactly a game of cards I want  
with you."  
  
I saw him draw his hands down his face--the  
vague stir of the passionate and meaningless ges-  
ture; but he waited in silent patience. It was only  
when the lights had been brought out that he  
opened his lips. I understood his mumble to mean  
that "he didn't know any game."  
  
"Like this Schomberg and all the other fools  
will have to keep off," I said tearing open the pack.
"Have you heard that we are universally supposed  
to be quarrelling about a girl? You know who--  
of course. I am really ashamed to ask, but is it  
possible that you do me the honour to think me dan-  
gerous?"  
  
As I said these words I felt how absurd it was  
and also I felt flattered--for, really, what else  
could it be? His answer, spoken in his usual dis-  
passionate undertone, made it clear that it was so,  
but not precisely as flattering as I supposed. He  
thought me dangerous with Hermann, more than  
with the girl herself; but, as to quarrelling, I saw  
at once how inappropriate the word was. We had  
no quarrel. Natural forces are not quarrelsome.
You can't quarrel with the wind that inconveniences  
and humiliates you by blowing off your hat in a  
street full of people. He had no quarrel with me.
Neither would a boulder, falling on my head, have  
had. He fell upon me in accordance with the law  
by which he was moved--not of gravitation, like a  
detached stone, but of self-preservation. Of course  
this is giving it a rather wide interpretation.
Strictly speaking, he had existed and could have  
existed without being married. Yet he told me that  
he had found it more and more difficult to live  
alone. Yes. He told me this in his low, careless  
voice, to such a pitch of confidence had we arrived  
at the end of half an hour.
  
It took me just about that time to convince him  
that I had never dreamed of marrying Hermann's  
niece. Could any necessity have been more extrava-  
gant? And the difficulty was the greater because  
he was so hard hit that he couldn't imagine any-  
body being able to remain in a state of indifference.
Any man with eyes in his head, he seemed to think,  
could not help coveting so much bodily magnifi-  
cence. This profound belief was conveyed by the  
manner he listened sitting sideways to the table and  
playing absently with a few cards I had dealt to  
him at random. And the more I saw into him the  
more I saw of him. The wind swayed the lights  
so that his sunburnt face, whiskered to the eyes,  
seemed to successively flicker crimson at me and to  
go out. I saw the extraordinary breadth of the  
high cheek-bones, the perpendicular style of the  
features, the massive forehead, steep like a cliff,  
denuded at the top, largely uncovered at the tem-  
ples. The fact is I had never before seen him with-  
out his hat; but now, as if my fervour had made  
him hot, he had taken it off and laid it gently on  
the floor. Something peculiar in the shape and  
setting of his yellow eyes gave them the provoking  
silent intensity which characterised his glance.
But the face was thin, furrowed, worn; I discov-  
ered that through the bush of his hair, as you may  
detect the gnarled shape of a tree trunk lost in a  
dense undergrowth. These overgrown cheeks were  
sunken. It was an anchorite's bony head fitted with  
a Capuchin's beard and adjusted to a herculean  
body. I don't mean athletic. Hercules, I take it,  
was not an athlete. He was a strong man, suscep-  
tible to female charms, and not afraid of dirt.
And thus with Falk, who was a strong man. He  
was extremely strong, just as the girl (since I  
must think of them together) was magnificently at-  
tractive by the masterful power of flesh and blood,  
expressed in shape, in size, in attitude--that is by  
a straight appeal to the senses. His mind mean-  
time, preoccupied with respectability, quailed be-  
fore Schomberg's tongue and seemed absolutely  
impervious to my protestations; and I went so far  
as to protest that I would just as soon think of  
marrying my mother's (dear old lady!) faithful  
female cook as Hermann's niece. Sooner, I pro-  
tested, in my desperation, much sooner; but it did  
not appear that he saw anything outrageous in the  
proposition, and in his sceptical immobility he  
seemed to nurse the argument that at all events the  
cook was very, very far away. It must be said that,  
just before, I had gone wrong by appealing to the  
evidence of my manner whenever I called on board  
the Diana. I had never attempted to approach the  
girl, or to speak to her, or even to look at her in any  
marked way. Nothing could be clearer. But, as  
his own idea of--let us say--courting, seemed to  
consist precisely in sitting silently for hours in the  
vicinity of the beloved object, that line of argu-  
ment inspired him with distrust. Staring down his  
extended legs he let out a grunt--as much as to  
say, "That's all very fine, but you can't throw dust  
in MY eyes."  
  
At last I was exasperated into saying, "Why  
don't you put the matter at rest by talking to Her-  
mann?" and I added sneeringly: "You don't ex-  
pect me perhaps to speak for you?"  
  
To this he said, very loud for him, "Would  
you?"  
  
And for the first time he lifted his head to look  
at me with wonder and incredulity. He lifted his  
head so sharply that there could be no mistake. I  
had touched a spring. I saw the whole extent of  
my opportunity, and could hardly believe in it.
  
"Why. Speak to . . . Well, of course," I  
proceeded very slowly, watching him with great at-  
tention, for, on my word, I feared a joke. "Not,  
perhaps, to the young lady herself. I can't speak  
German, you know. But . . ."  
  
He interrupted me with the earnest assurance  
that Hermann had the highest opinion of me; and  
at once I felt the need for the greatest possible  
diplomacy at this juncture. So I demurred just  
enough to draw him on. Falk sat up, but except  
for a very noticeable enlargement of the pupils,  
till the irises of his eyes were reduced to two narrow  
yellow rings, his face, I should judge, was incapa-  
ble of expressing excitement. "Oh, yes! Hermann  
did have the greatest . . ."  
  
"Take up your cards. Here's Schomberg peep-  
ing at us through the blind!" I said.
  
We went through the motions of what might  
have been a game of e'carte'. Presently the intoler-  
able scandalmonger withdrew, probably to inform  
the people in the billiard-room that we two were  
gambling on the verandah like mad.
  
We were not gambling, but it was a game; a  
game in which I felt I held the winning cards. The  
stake, roughly speaking, was the success of the voy-  
age--for me; and he, I apprehended, had nothing  
to lose. Our intimacy matured rapidly, and before  
many words had been exchanged I perceived that  
the excellent Hermann had been making use of me.
That simple and astute Teuton had been, it seems,  
holding me up to Falk in the light of a rival. I  
was young enough to be shocked at so much duplic-  
ity. "Did he tell you that in so many words?" I  
asked with indignation.
  
Hermann had not. He had given hints only;  
and of course it had not taken very much to alarm  
Falk; but, instead of declaring himself, he had  
taken steps to remove the family from under my in-  
fluence. He was perfectly straightforward about  
it--as straightforward as a tile falling on your  
head. There was no duplicity in that man; and  
when I congratulated him on the perfection of his  
arrangements--even to the bribing of the wretched  
Johnson against me--he had a genuine movement  
of protest. Never bribed. He knew the man  
wouldn't work as long as he had a few cents in his  
pocket to get drunk on, and, naturally (he said--  
"NATURALLY") he let him have a dollar or two. He  
was himself a sailor, he said, and anticipated the  
view another sailor, like myself, was bound to take.
On the other hand, he was sure that I should have  
to come to grief. He hadn't been knocking about  
for the last seven years up and down that river for  
nothing. It would have been no disgrace to me--  
but he asserted confidently I would have had my  
ship very awkwardly ashore at a spot two miles  
below the Great Pagoda. . . .
  
And with all that he had no ill-will. That was  
evident. This was a crisis in which his only object  
had been to gain time--I fancy. And presently  
he mentioned that he had written for some jewel-  
lery, real good jewellery--had written to Hong-  
Kong for it. It would arrive in a day or two.
  
"Well, then," I said cheerily, "everything is all  
right. All you've got to do is to present it to the  
lady together with your heart, and live happy ever  
after."  
  
Upon the whole he seemed to accept that view as  
far as the girl was concerned, but his eyelids  
drooped. There was still something in the way.
For one thing Hermann disliked him so much. As  
to me, on the contrary, it seemed as though he could  
not praise me enough. Mrs. Hermann too. He  
didn't know why they disliked him so. It made  
everything most difficult.
  
I listened impassive, feeling more and more dip-  
lomatic. His speech was not transparently clear.
He was one of those men who seem to live, feel,  
suffer in a sort of mental twilight. But as to being  
fascinated by the girl and possessed by the desire  
of home life with her--it was as clear as daylight.
So much being at stake, he was afraid of putting  
it to the hazard of declaration. Besides, there  
was something else. And with Hermann being so  
set against him . . .
  
"I see," I said thoughtfully, while my heart beat  
fast with the excitement of my diplomacy. "I  
don't mind sounding Hermann. In fact, to show  
you how mistaken you were, I am ready to do all I  
can for you in that way."  
  
A light sigh escaped him. He drew his hands  
down his face, and it emerged, bony, unchanged of  
expression, as if all the tissues had been ossified.
All the passion was in those big brown hands. He  
was satisfied. Then there was that other matter.
If there were anybody on earth it was I who could  
persuade Hermann to take a reasonable view! I  
had a knowledge of the world and lots of expe-  
rience. Hermann admitted this himself. And then  
I was a sailor too. Falk thought that a sail-  
or would be able to understand certain things  
best. . . .
  
He talked as if the Hermanns had been living all  
their life in a rural hamlet, and I alone had been  
capable, with my practice in life, of a large and  
indulgent view of certain occurrences. That was  
what my diplomacy was leading me to. I began  
suddenly to dislike it.
  
"I say, Falk," I asked quite brusquely, "you  
haven't already a wife put away somewhere?"  
  
The pain and disgust of his denial were very  
striking. Couldn't I understand that he was as  
respectable as any white man hereabouts; earning  
his living honestly. He was suffering from my sus-  
picion, and the low undertone of his voice made his  
protestations sound very pathetic. For a moment  
he shamed me, but, my diplomacy notwithstanding,  
I seemed to develop a conscience, as if in very  
truth it were in my power to decide the success of  
this matrimonial enterprise. By pretending hard  
enough we come to believe anything--anything to  
our advantage. And I had been pretending very  
hard, because I meant yet to be towed safely down  
the river. But through conscience or stupidity, I  
couldn't help alluding to the Vanlo affair. "You  
acted rather badly there. Didn't you?" was what  
I ventured actually to say--for the logic of our  
conduct is always at the mercy of obscure and un-  
foreseen impulses.
  
His dilated pupils swerved from my face, glan-  
cing at the window with a sort of scared fury. We  
heard behind the blinds the continuous and sudden  
clicking of ivory, a jovial murmur of many voices,  
and Schomberg's deep manly laugh.
  
"That confounded old woman of a hotel-keeper  
then would never, never let it rest!" Falk ex-  
claimed. "Well, yes! It had happened two years  
ago."  When it came to the point he owned he  
couldn't make up his mind to trust Fred Vanlo--  
no sailor, a bit of a fool too. He could not trust  
him, but, to stop his row, he had lent him enough  
money to pay all his debts before he left. I was  
greatly surprised to hear this. Then Falk could  
not be such a miser after all. So much the better  
for the girl. For a time he sat silent; then he  
picked up a card, and while looking at it he  
said:
  
"You need not think of anything bad. It was  
an accident. I've been unfortunate once."  
  
"Then in heaven's name say nothing about it."  
  
As soon as these words were out of my mouth I  
fancied I had said something immoral. He shook  
his head negatively. It had to be told. He con-  
sidered it proper that the relations of the lady  
should know. No doubt--I thought to myself--  
had Miss Vanlo not been thirty and damaged by the  
climate he would have found it possible to entrust  
Fred Vanlo with this confidence. And then the fig-  
ure of Hermann's niece appeared before my mind's  
eye, with the wealth of her opulent form, her rich  
youth, her lavish strength. With that powerful  
and immaculate vitality, her girlish form must have  
shouted aloud of life to that man, whereas poor  
Miss Vanlo could only sing sentimental songs to  
the strumming of a piano.
  
"And that Hermann hates me, I know it!" he  
cried in his undertone, with a sudden recrudescence  
of anxiety. "I must tell them. It is proper that  
they should know. You would say so yourself."  
  
He then murmured an utterly mysterious allu-  
sion to the necessity for peculiar domestic arrange-  
ments. Though my curiosity was excited I did not  
want to hear any of his confidences. I feared he  
might give me a piece of information that would  
make my assumed role of match-maker odious--  
however unreal it was. I was aware that he could  
have the girl for the asking; and keeping down a  
desire to laugh in his face, I expressed a confident  
belief in my ability to argue away Hermann's dis-  
like for him. "I am sure I can make it all right,"  
I said. He looked very pleased.
  
And when we rose not a word had been said about  
towage! Not a word! The game was won and the  
honour was safe. Oh! blessed white cotton um-  
brella! We shook hands, and I was holding myself  
with difficulty from breaking into a step dance of  
joy when he came back, striding all the length of  
the verandah, and said doubtfully:
  
"I say, captain, I have your word? You--you  
--won't turn round?"  
  
Heavens! The fright he gave me. Behind his  
tone of doubt there was something desperate and  
menacing. The infatuated ass. But I was equal to  
the situation.
  
"My dear Falk," I said, beginning to lie with  
a glibness and effrontery that amazed me even at  
the time--"confidence for confidence."  (He had  
made no confidences.)  "I will tell you that I am  
already engaged to an extremely charming girl at  
home, and so you understand. . . ."  
  
He caught my hand and wrung it in a crushing  
grip.
  
"Pardon me. I feel it every day more difficult  
to live alone . . ."  
  
"On rice and fish," I interrupted smartly, gig-  
gling with the sheer nervousness of a danger es-  
caped.
  
He dropped my hand as if it had become sud-  
denly red hot. A moment of profound silence en-  
sued, as though something extraordinary had hap-  
pened.
  
"I promise you to obtain Hermann's consent,"  
I faltered out at last, and it seemed to me that he  
could not help seeing through that humbug-  
ging promise. "If there's anything else to get  
over I shall endeavour to stand by you," I conceded  
further, feeling somehow defeated and overborne;  
"but you must do your best yourself."  
  
"I have been unfortunate once," he muttered  
unemotionally, and turning his back on me he went  
away, thumping slowly the plank floor as if his feet  
had been shod with iron.
  
Next morning, however, he was lively enough as  
man-boat, a combination of splashing and shout-  
ing; of the insolent commotion below with the  
steady overbearing glare of the silent head-piece  
above. He turned us out most unnecessarily at an  
ungodly hour, but it was nearly eleven in the morn-  
ing before he brought me up a cable's length from  
Hermann's ship. And he did it very badly too, in  
a hurry, and nearly contriving to miss altogether  
the patch of good holding ground, because, for-  
sooth, he had caught sight of Hermann's niece on  
the poop. And so did I; and probably as soon as  
he had seen her himself. I saw the modest, sleek  
glory of the tawny head, and the full, grey shape  
of the girlish print frock she filled so perfectly, so  
satisfactorily, with the seduction of unfaltering  
curves--a very nymph of Diana the Huntress.
And Diana the ship sat, high-walled and as solid  
as an institution, on the smooth level of the water,  
the most uninspiring and respectable craft upon  
the seas, useful and ugly, devoted to the support  
of domestic virtues like any grocer's shop on shore.
At once Falk steamed away; for there was some  
work for him to do. He would return in the even-  
ing.
  
He ranged close by us, passing out dead slow,  
without a hail. The beat of the paddle-wheels re-  
verberating amongst the stony islets, as if from the  
ruined walls of a vast arena, filled the anchorage  
confusedly with the clapping sounds of a mighty  
and leisurely applause. Abreast of Hermann's  
ship he stopped the engines; and a profound si-  
lence reigned over the rocks, the shore and the sea,  
for the time it took him to raise his hat aloft before  
the nymph of the grey print frock. I had snatched  
up my binoculars, and I can answer for it she didn't  
stir a limb, standing by the rail shapely and erect,  
with one of her hands grasping a rope at the height  
of her head, while the way of the tug carried slowly  
past her the lingering and profound homage of the  
man. There was for me an enormous significance  
in the scene, the sense of having witnessed a solemn  
declaration. The die was cast. After such a man-  
ifestation he couldn't back out. And I reflected  
that it was nothing whatever to me now. With a  
rush of black smoke belching suddenly out of the  
funnel, and a mad swirl of paddle-wheels provoking  
a burst of weird and precipitated clapping, the tug  
shot out of the desolate arena. The rocky islets  
lay on the sea like the heaps of a cyclopean ruin  
on a plain; the centipedes and scorpions lurked un-  
der the stones; there was not a single blade of grass  
in sight anywhere, not a single lizard sunning him-  
self on a boulder by the shore. When I looked  
again at Hermann's ship the girl had disappeared.
I could not detect the smallest dot of a bird on the  
immense sky, and the flatness of the land continued  
the flatness of the sea to the naked line of the hori-  
zon.
  
This is the setting now inseparably connected  
with my knowledge of Falk's misfortune. My di-  
plomacy had brought me there, and now I had only  
to wait the time for taking up the role of an ambas-  
sador. My diplomacy was a success; my ship was  
safe; old Gambril would probably live; a feeble  
sound of a tapping hammer came intermittently  
from the Diana. During the afternoon I looked  
at times at the old homely ship, the faithful nurse  
of Hermann's progeny, or yawned towards the dis-  
tant temple of Buddha, like a lonely hillock on the  
plain, where shaven priests cherish the thoughts of  
that Annihilation which is the worthy reward of us  
all. Unfortunate! He had been unfortunate once.
Well, that was not so bad as life goes. And what  
the devil could be the nature of that misfortune?
I remembered that I had known a man before who  
had declared himself to have fallen, years ago, a  
victim to misfortune; but this misfortune, whose  
effects appeared permanent (he looked desper-  
ately hard up) when considered dispassionately,  
seemed indistinguishable from a breach of trust.
Could it be something of that nature? Apart,  
however, from the utter improbability that he  
would offer to talk of it even to his future uncle-  
in-law, I had a strange feeling that Falk's physique  
unfitted him for that sort of delinquency. As the  
person of Hermann's niece exhaled the profound  
physical charm of feminine form, so her ador-  
er's big frame embodied to my senses the hard,  
straight masculinity that would conceivably kill  
but would not condescend to cheat. The thing  
was obvious. I might just as well have suspected  
the girl of a curvature of the spine. And I per-  
ceived that the sun was about to set.
  
The smoke of Falk's tug hove in sight, far  
away at the mouth of the river. It was time for  
me to assume the character of an ambassador, and  
the negotiation would not be difficult except in the  
matter of keeping my countenance. It was all too  
extravagantly nonsensical, and I conceived that it  
would be best to compose for myself a grave de-  
meanour. I practised this in my boat as I went  
along, but the bashfulness that came secretly upon  
me the moment I stepped on the deck of the Diana  
is inexplicable. As soon as we had exchanged  
greetings Hermann asked me eagerly if I knew  
whether Falk had found his white parasol.
  
"He's going to bring it to you himself directly,"  
I said with great solemnity. "Meantime I am  
charged with an important message for which he  
begs your favourable consideration. He is in love  
with your niece. . . ."  
  
"Ach So!" he hissed with an animosity that  
made my assumed gravity change into the most  
genuine concern. What meant this tone? And I  
hurried on.
  
"He wishes, with your consent of course, to ask  
her to marry him at once--before you leave here,  
that is. He would speak to the Consul."  
  
Hermann sat down and smoked violently. Five  
minutes passed in that furious meditation, and  
then, taking the long pipe out of his mouth, he  
burst into a hot diatribe against Falk--against his  
cupidity, his stupidity (a fellow that can hardly  
be got to say "yes" or "no" to the simplest ques-  
tion)--against his outrageous treatment of the  
shipping in port (because he saw they were at his  
mercy)--and against his manner of walking,  
which to his (Hermann's) mind showed a conceit  
positively unbearable. The damage to the old  
Diana was not forgotten, of course, and there was  
nothing of any nature said or done by Falk (even  
to the last offer of refreshment in the hotel) that  
did not seem to have been a cause of offence.
"Had the cheek" to drag him (Hermann) into  
that coffee-room; as though a drink from him could  
make up for forty-seven dollars and fifty cents of  
damage in the cost of wood alone--not counting  
two days' work for the carpenter. Of course he  
would not stand in the girl's way. He was going  
home to Germany. There were plenty of poor  
girls walking about in Germany.
  
"He's very much in love," was all I found to  
say.
  
"Yes," he cried. "And it is time too after mak-  
ing himself and me talked about ashore the last  
voyage I was here, and then now again; coming on  
board every evening unsettling the girl's mind, and  
saying nothing. What sort of conduct is that?"  
  
The seven thousand dollars the fellow was always  
talking about did not, in his opinion, justify such  
behaviour. Moreover, nobody had seen them. He  
(Hermann) seriously doubted if there were seven  
thousand cents, and the tug, no doubt, was mort-  
gaged up to the top of the funnel to the firm of  
Siegers. But let that pass. He wouldn't stand in  
the girl's way. Her head was so turned that she  
had become no good to them of late. Quite unable  
even to put the children to bed without her aunt.
It was bad for the children; they got unruly; and  
yesterday he actually had to give Gustav a thrash-  
ing.
  
For that, too, Falk was made responsible ap-  
parently. And looking at my Hermann's heavy,  
puffy, good-natured face, I knew he would not ex-  
ert himself till greatly exasperated, and, therefore,  
would thrash very hard, and being fat would resent  
the necessity. How Falk had managed to turn the  
girl's head was more difficult to understand. I sup-  
posed Hermann would know. And then hadn't  
there been Miss Vanlo? It could not be his silvery  
tongue, or the subtle seduction of his manner; he  
had no more of what is called "manner" than an  
animal--which, however, on the other hand, is  
never, and can never be called vulgar. Therefore  
it must have been his bodily appearance, exhibiting  
a virility of nature as exaggerated as his beard, and  
resembling a sort of constant ruthlessness. It was  
seen in the very manner he lolled in the chair. He  
meant no offence, but his intercourse was charac-  
terised by that sort of frank disregard of suscepti-  
bilities a man of seven foot six, living in a world of  
dwarfs, would naturally assume, without in the  
least wishing to be unkind. But amongst men of  
his own stature, or nearly, this frank use of his ad-  
vantages, in such matters as the awful towage bills  
for instance, caused much impotent gnashing of  
teeth. When attentively considered it seemed ap-  
palling at times. He was a strange beast. But  
maybe women liked it. Seen in that light he was  
well worth taming, and I suppose every woman at  
the bottom of her heart considers herself as a tamer  
of strange beasts. But Hermann arose with pre-  
cipitation to carry the news to his wife. I had  
barely the time, as he made for the cabin door, to  
grab him by the seat of his inexpressibles. I  
begged him to wait till Falk in person had spoken  
with him. There remained some small matter to  
talk over, as I understood.
  
He sat down again at once, full of suspicion.
  
"What matter?" he said surlily. "I have had  
enough of his nonsense. There's no matter at all,  
as he knows very well; the girl has nothing in the  
world. She came to us in one thin dress when my  
brother died, and I have a growing family."  
  
"It can't be anything of that kind," I opined.
"He's desperately enamoured of your niece. I  
don't know why he did not say so before. Upon  
my word, I believe it is because he was afraid to  
lose, perhaps, the felicity of sitting near her on  
your quarter deck."  
  
I intimated my conviction that his love was so  
great as to be in a sense cowardly. The effects of  
a great passion are unaccountable. It has been  
known to make a man timid. But Hermann looked  
at me as if I had foolishly raved; and the twilight  
was dying out rapidly.
  
"You don't believe in passion, do you, Her-  
mann?" I said cheerily. "The passion of fear will  
make a cornered rat courageous. Falk's in a cor-  
ner. He will take her off your hands in one thin  
frock just as she came to you. And after ten years'  
service it isn't a bad bargain," I added.
  
Far from taking offence, he resumed his air of  
civic virtue. The sudden night came upon him  
while he stared placidly along the deck, bringing  
in contact with his thick lips, and taking away  
again after a jet of smoke, the curved mouthpiece  
fitted to the stem of his pipe. The night came  
upon him and buried in haste his whiskers, his glob-  
ular eyes, his puffy pale face, his fat knees and the  
vast flat slippers on his fatherly feet. Only his  
short arms in respectable white shirt-sleeves re-  
mained very visible, propped up like the flippers of  
a seal reposing on the strand.
  
"Falk wouldn't settle anything about repairs.
Told me to find out first how much wood I should  
require and he would see," he remarked; and after  
he had spat peacefully in the dusk we heard over  
the water the beat of the tug's floats. There is, on  
a calm night, nothing more suggestive of fierce and  
headlong haste than the rapid sound made by the  
paddle-wheels of a boat threshing her way through  
a quiet sea; and the approach of Falk towards his  
fate seemed to be urged by an impatient and pas-  
sionate desire. The engines must have been driven  
to the very utmost of their revolutions. We heard  
them slow down at last, and, vaguely, the white  
hull of the tug appeared moving against the black  
islets, whilst a slow and rhythmical clapping as of  
thousands of hands rose on all sides. It ceased all  
at once, just before Falk brought her up. A sin-  
gle brusque splash was followed by the long drawn  
rumbling of iron links running through the hawse  
pipe. Then a solemn silence fell upon the Road-  
stead.
  
"He will soon be here," I murmured, and after  
that we waited for him without a word. Meantime,  
raising my eyes, I beheld the glitter of a lofty sky  
above the Diana's mastheads. The multitude of  
stars gathered into clusters, in rows, in lines, in  
masses, in groups, shone all together, unanimously  
--and the few isolated ones, blazing by themselves  
in the midst of dark patches, seemed to be of a su-  
perior kind and of an inextinguishable nature. But  
long striding footsteps were heard hastening along  
the deck; the high bulwarks of the Diana made a  
deeper darkness. We rose from our chairs quickly,  
and Falk, appearing before us, all in white, stood  
still.
  
Nobody spoke at first, as though we had been  
covered with confusion. His arrival was fiery, but  
his white bulk, of indefinite shape and without fea-  
tures, made him loom up like a man of snow.
  
"The captain here has been telling me . . ."  
Hermann began in a homely and amicable voice;  
and Falk had a low, nervous laugh. His cool, neg-  
ligent undertone had no inflexions, but the strength  
of a powerful emotion made him ramble in his  
speech. He had always desired a home. It was  
difficult to live alone, though he was not answera-  
ble. He was domestic; there had been difficulties;  
but since he had seen Hermann's niece he found  
that it had become at last impossible to live by him-  
self. "I mean--impossible," he repeated with no  
sort of emphasis and only with the slightest of  
pauses, but the word fell into my mind with the  
force of a new idea.
  
"I have not said anything to her yet," Hermann  
observed quietly. And Falk dismissed this by a  
"That's all right. Certainly. Very proper."  
There was a necessity for perfect frankness--in  
marrying, especially. Hermann seemed attentive,  
but he seized the first opportunity to ask us into the  
cabin. "And by-the-by, Falk," he said innocent-  
ly, as we passed in, "the timber came to no less  
than forty-seven dollars and fifty cents."  
  
Falk, uncovering his head, lingered in the pas-  
sage. "Some other time," he said; and Hermann  
nudged me angrily--I don't know why. The girl  
alone in the cabin sat sewing at some distance from  
the table. Falk stopped short in the doorway.
Without a word, without a sign, without the slight-  
est inclination of his bony head, by the silent in-  
tensity of his look alone, he seemed to lay his her-  
culean frame at her feet. Her hands sank slowly  
on her lap, and raising her clear eyes, she let her  
soft, beaming glance enfold him from head to foot  
like a slow and pale caress. He was very hot when  
he sat down; she, with bowed head, went on with  
her sewing; her neck was very white under the light  
of the lamp; but Falk, hiding his face in the palms  
of his hands, shuddered faintly. He drew them  
down, even to his beard, and his uncovered eyes as-  
tonished me by their tense and irrational expres-  
sion--as though he had just swallowed a heavy  
gulp of alcohol. It passed away while he was  
binding us to secrecy. Not that he cared, but he  
did not like to be spoken about; and I looked at the  
girl's marvellous, at her wonderful, at her regal  
hair, plaited tight into that one astonishing and  
maidenly tress. Whenever she moved her well-  
shaped head it would stir stiffly to and fro on her  
back. The thin cotton sleeve fitted the irreproach-  
able roundness of her arm like a skin; and her very  
dress, stretched on her bust, seemed to palpitate  
like a living tissue with the strength of vitality ani-  
mating her body. How good her complexion was,  
the outline of her soft cheek and the small convo-  
luted conch of her rosy ear! To pull her needle she  
kept the little finger apart from the others; it  
seemed a waste of power to see her sewing--eter-  
nally sewing--with that industrious and precise  
movement of her arm, going on eternally upon all  
the oceans, under all the skies, in innumerable har-  
bours. And suddenly I heard Falk's voice declare  
that he could not marry a woman unless she knew  
of something in his life that had happened ten  
years ago. It was an accident. An unfortunate ac-  
cident. It would affect the domestic arrangements  
of their home, but, once told, it need not be alluded  
to again for the rest of their lives. "I should want  
my wife to feel for me," he said. "It has made me  
unhappy."  And how could he keep the knowledge  
of it to himself--he asked us--perhaps through  
years and years of companionship? What sort of  
companionship would that be? He had thought it  
over. A wife must know. Then why not at once?
He counted on Hermann's kindness for presenting  
the affair in the best possible light. And Her-  
mann's countenance, mystified before, became very  
sour. He stole an inquisitive glance at me. I  
shook my head blankly. Some people thought,  
Falk went on, that such an experience changed a  
man for the rest of his life. He couldn't say. It  
was hard, awful, and not to be forgotten, but he  
did not think himself a worse man than before.
Only he talked in his sleep now, he believed. . . .
At last I began to think he had accidentally killed  
some one; perhaps a friend--his own father may-  
be; when he went on to say that probably we were  
aware he never touched meat. Throughout he  
spoke English, of course of my account.
  
He swayed forward heavily.
  
The girl, with her hands raised before her pale  
eyes, was threading her needle. He glanced at her,  
and his mighty trunk overshadowed the table,  
bringing nearer to us the breadth of his shoulders,  
the thickness of his neck, and that incongruous, an-  
chorite head, burnt in the desert, hollowed and lean  
as if by excesses of vigils and fasting. His beard  
flowed imposingly downwards, out of sight, be-  
tween the two brown hands gripping the edge of  
the table, and his persistent glance made sombre by  
the wide dilations of the pupils, fascinated.
  
"Imagine to yourselves," he said in his ordinary  
voice, "that I have eaten man."  
  
I could only ejaculate a faint "Ah!" of com-  
plete enlightenment. But Hermann, dazed by the  
excessive shock, actually murmured, "Himmel!
What for?"  
  
"It was my terrible misfortune to do so," said  
Falk in a measured undertone. The girl, uncon-  
scious, sewed on. Mrs. Hermann was absent in  
one of the state-rooms, sitting up with Lena, who  
was feverish; but Hermann suddenly put both his  
hands up with a jerk. The embroidered calotte  
fell, and, in the twinkling of an eye, he had rum-  
pled his hair all ends up in a most extravagant  
manner. In this state he strove to speak; with  
every effort his eyes seemed to start further out of  
their sockets; his head looked like a mop. He  
choked, gasped, swallowed, and managed to shriek  
out the one word, "Beast!"  
  
From that moment till Falk went out of the cab-  
in the girl, with her hands folded on the work lying  
in her lap, never took her eyes off him. His own,  
in the blindness of his heart, darted all over the  
cabin, only seeking to avoid the sight of Hermann's  
raving. It was ridiculous, and was made almost  
terrible by the stillness of every other person pres-  
ent. It was contemptible, and was made appalling  
by the man's overmastering horror of this awful  
sincerity, coming to him suddenly, with the confes-  
sion of such a fact. He walked with great strides;  
he gasped. He wanted to know from Falk how  
dared he to come and tell him this? Did he think  
himself a proper person to be sitting in this cabin  
where his wife and children lived? Tell his niece!
Expected him to tell his niece! His own brother's  
daughter! Shameless! Did I ever hear tell of such  
impudence?--he appealed to me. "This man here  
ought to have gone and hidden himself out of sight  
instead of . . ."  
  
"But it's a great misfortune for me. But it's a  
great misfortune for me," Falk would ejaculate  
from time to time.
  
However, Hermann kept on running frequently  
against the corners of the table. At last he lost a  
slipper, and crossing his arms on his breast, walked  
up with one stocking foot very close to Falk, in or-  
der to ask him whether he did think there was any-  
where on earth a woman abandoned enough to mate  
with such a monster. "Did he? Did he? Did  
he?"  I tried to restrain him. He tore himself out  
of my hands; he found his slipper, and, endeavour-  
ing to put it on, stormed standing on one leg--  
and Falk, with a face unmoved and averted  
eyes, grasped all his mighty beard in one vast  
palm.
  
"Was it right then for me to die myself?" he  
asked thoughtfully. I laid my hand on his shoul-  
der.
  
"Go away," I whispered imperiously, without  
any clear reason for this advice, except that I  
wished to put an end to Hermann's odious noise.
"Go away."  
  
He looked searchingly for a moment at Hermann  
before he made a move. I left the cabin too to see  
him out of the ship. But he hung about the quar-  
ter-deck.
  
"It is my misfortune," he said in a steady  
voice.
  
"You were stupid to blurt it out in such a man-  
ner. After all, we don't hear such confidences  
every day."  
  
"What does the man mean?" he mused in deep  
undertones. "Somebody had to die--but why  
me?"  
  
He remained still for a time in the dark--silent;  
almost invisible. All at once he pinned my elbows  
to my sides. I felt utterly powerless in his grip,  
and his voice, whispering in my ear, vibrated.
  
"It's worse than hunger. Captain, do you know  
what that means? And I could kill then--or be  
killed. I wish the crowbar had smashed my skull  
ten years ago. And I've got to live now. Without  
her. Do you understand? Perhaps many years.
But how? What can be done? If I had allowed  
myself to look at her once I would have carried her  
off before that man in my hands--like this."  
  
I felt myself snatched off the deck, then suddenly  
dropped--and I staggered backwards, feeling  
bewildered and bruised. What a man! All was  
still; he was gone. I heard Hermann's voice de-  
claiming in the cabin, and I went in.
  
I could not at first make out a single word, but  
Mrs. Hermann, who, attracted by the noise, had  
come in some time before, with an expression of  
surprise and mild disapproval, depicted broadly on  
her face, was giving now all the signs of profound,  
helpless agitation. Her husband shot a string of  
guttural words at her, and instantly putting out  
one hand to the bulkhead as if to save herself from  
falling, she clutched the loose bosom of her dress  
with the other. He harangued the two women ex-  
traordinarily, with much of his shirt hanging out of  
his waistbelt, stamping his foot, turning from one  
to the other, sometimes throwing both his arms to-  
gether, straight up above his rumpled hair, and  
keeping them in that position while he uttered a  
passage of loud denunciation; at others folding  
them tight across his breast--and then he hissed  
with indignation, elevating his shoulders and pro-  
truding his head. The girl was crying.
  
She had not changed her attitude. From her  
steady eyes that, following Falk in his retreat, had  
remained fixed wistfully on the cabin door, the  
tears fell rapid, thick, on her hands, on the work in  
her lap, warm and gentle like a shower in spring.
She wept without grimacing, without noise--very  
touching, very quiet, with something more of pity  
than of pain in her face, as one weeps in compassion  
rather than in grief--and Hermann, before her,  
declaimed. I caught several times the word  
"Mensch," man; and also "Fressen," which last I  
looked up afterwards in my dictionary. It means  
"Devour."  Hermann seemed to be requesting an  
answer of some sort from her; his whole body  
swayed. She remained mute and perfectly still;  
at last his agitation gained her; she put the palms  
of her hands together, her full lips parted, no  
sound came. His voice scolded shrilly, his arms  
went like a windmill--suddenly he shook a thick  
fist at her. She burst out into loud sobs. He  
seemed stupefied.
  
Mrs. Hermann rushed forward babbling rap-  
dly. The two women fell on each other's necks,  
and, with an arm round her niece's waist, she led her  
away. Her own eyes were simply streaming, her  
face was flooded. She shook her head back at me  
negatively, I wonder why to this day. The girl's  
head dropped heavily on her shoulder. They dis-  
appeared.
  
Then Hermann sat down and stared at the cabin  
floor.
  
"We don't know all the circumstances," I ven-  
tured to break the silence. He retorted tartly that  
he didn't want to know of any. According to his  
ideas no circumstances could excuse a crime--and  
certainly not such a crime. This was the opinion  
generally received. The duty of a human being  
was to starve. Falk therefore was a beast, an ani-  
mal; base, low, vile, despicable, shameless, and de-  
ceitful. He had been deceiving him since last year.
He was, however, inclined to think that Falk must  
have gone mad quite recently; for no sane person,  
without necessity, uselessly, for no earthly reason,  
and regardless of another's self-respect and peace  
of mind, would own to having devoured human  
flesh. "Why tell?" he cried. "Who was asking  
him?"  It showed Falk's brutality because after  
all he had selfishly caused him (Hermann) much  
pain. He would have preferred not to know that  
such an unclean creature had been in the habit of  
caressing his children. He hoped I would say noth-  
ing of all this ashore, though. He wouldn't like it  
to get about that he had been intimate with an  
eater of men--a common cannibal. As to the scene  
he had made (which I judged quite unnecessary)  
he was not going to inconvenience and restrain  
himself for a fellow that went about courting and  
upsetting girls' heads, while he knew all the time  
that no decent housewifely girl could think of mar-  
rying him. At least he (Hermann) could not con-  
ceive how any girl could. Fancy Lena! . . . No,  
it was impossible. The thoughts that would come  
into their heads every time they sat down to a meal.
Horrible! Horrible!
  
"You are too squeamish, Hermann," I said.
  
He seemed to think it was eminently proper to be  
squeamish if the word meant disgust at Falk's con-  
duct; and turning up his eyes sentimentally he  
drew my attention to the horrible fate of the victims  
--the victims of that Falk. I said that I knew  
nothing about them. He seemed surprised. Could  
not anybody imagine without knowing? He--for  
instance--felt he would like to avenge them. But  
what if--said I--there had not been any? They  
might have died as it were, naturally--of starva-  
tion. He shuddered. But to be eaten--after  
death! To be devoured! He gave another deep  
shudder, and asked suddenly, "Do you think it  
is true?"  
  
His indignation and his personality together  
would have been enough to spoil the reality of the  
most authentic thing. When I looked at him I  
doubted the story--but the remembrance of Falk's  
words, looks, gestures, invested it not only with  
an air of reality but with the absolute truth of  
primitive passion.
  
"It is true just as much as you are able to make  
it; and exactly in the way you like to make it. For  
my part, when I hear you clamouring about it, I  
don't believe it is true at all."  
  
And I left him pondering. The men in my boat  
lying at the foot of Diana's side ladder told me that  
the captain of the tug had gone away in his gig  
some time ago.
  
I let my fellows pull an easy stroke; because of  
the heavy dew the clear sparkle of the stars seemed  
to fall on me cold and wetting. There was a sense  
of lurking gruesome horror somewhere in my mind,  
and it was mingled with clear and grotesque  
images. Schomberg's gastronomic tittle-tattle  
was responsible for these; and I half hoped I  
should never see Falk again. But the first thing  
my anchor-watchman told me was that the captain  
of the tug was on board. He had sent his boat  
away and was now waiting for me in the cuddy.
  
He was lying full length on the stern settee, his  
face buried in the cushions. I had expected to see  
it discomposed, contorted, despairing. It was  
nothing of the kind; it was just as I had seen it  
twenty times, steady and glaring from the bridge  
of the tug. It was immovably set and hungry,  
dominated like the whole man by the singleness of  
one instinct.
  
He wanted to live. He had always wanted to  
live. So we all do--but in us the instinct serves a  
complex conception, and in him this instinct existed  
alone. There is in such simple development a gi-  
gantic force, and like the pathos of a child's naive  
nd uncontrolled desire. He wanted that girl, and  
the utmost that can be said for him was that he  
wanted that particular girl alone. I think I saw  
then the obscure beginning, the seed germinating  
in the soil of an unconscious need, the first shoot  
of that tree bearing now for a mature mankind the  
flower and the fruit, the infinite gradation in  
shades and in flavour of our discriminating love.
He was a child. He was as frank as a child too.
He was hungry for the girl, terribly hungry, as  
he had been terribly hungry for food.
  
Don't be shocked if I declare that in my belief  
it was the same need, the same pain, the same tor-  
ture. We are in his case allowed to contemplate  
the foundation of all the emotions--that one joy  
which is to live, and the one sadness at the root of  
the innumerable torments. It was made plain by  
the way he talked. He had never suffered so. It  
was gnawing, it was fire; it was there, like this!
And after pointing below his breastbone, he made  
a hard wringing motion with his hands. And I as-  
sure you that, seen as I saw it with my bodily eyes,  
it was anything but laughable. And again, as he  
was presently to tell me (alluding to an early inci-  
dent of the disastrous voyage when some damaged  
meat had been flung overboard), he said that a  
time soon came when his heart ached (that was the  
expression he used), and he was ready to tear his  
hair out at the thought of all that rotten beef  
thrown away.
  
I had heard all this; I witnessed his physical  
struggles, seeing the working of the rack and hear-  
ing the true voice of pain. I witnessed it all pa-  
tiently, because the moment I came into the cuddy  
he had called upon me to stand by him--and this,  
it seems, I had diplomatically promised.
  
His agitation was impressive and alarming in  
the little cabin, like the floundering of a great  
whale driven into a shallow cove in a coast. He  
stood up; he flung himself down headlong; he tried  
to tear the cushion with his teeth; and again hug-  
ging it fiercely to his face he let himself fall on the  
couch. The whole ship seemed to feel the shock  
of his despair; and I contemplated with wonder the  
lofty forehead, the noble touch of time on the un-  
covered temples, the unchanged hungry character  
of the face--so strangely ascetic and so incapable  
of portraying emotion.
  
What should he do? He had lived by being  
near her. He had sat--in the evening--I knew?--  
all his life! She sewed. Her head was bent--so.
Her head--like this--and her arms. Ah! Had I  
seen? Like this.
  
He dropped on a stool, bowed his powerful neck  
whose nape was red, and with his hands stitched  
the air, ludicrous, sublimely imbecile and compre-  
hensible.
  
And now he couldn't have her? No! That was  
too much. After thinking too that . . . What  
had he done? What was my advice? Take her by  
force? No? Mustn't he? Who was there then  
to kill him? For the first time I saw one of his fea-  
tures move; a fighting teeth-baring curl of the lip.
. . . "Not Hermann, perhaps."  He lost himself  
in thought as though he had fallen out of the  
world.
  
I may note that the idea of suicide apparently  
did not enter his head for a single moment. It oc-  
curred to me to ask:
  
"Where was it that this shipwreck of yours took  
place?"  
  
"Down south," he said vaguely with a start.
  
"You are not down south now," I said. "Vio-  
lence won't do. They would take her away from  
you in no time. And what was the name of the  
ship?"  
  
"Borgmester Dahl," he said. "It was no ship-  
wreck."  
  
He seemed to be waking up by degrees from that  
trance, and waking up calmed.
  
"Not a shipwreck? What was it?"  
  
"Break down," he answered, looking more like  
himself every moment. By this only I learned that  
it was a steamer. I had till then supposed they  
had been starving in boats or on a raft--or per-  
haps on a barren rock.
  
"She did not sink then?" I asked in surprise.
He nodded. "We sighted the southern ice," he  
pronounced dreamily.
  
"And you alone survived?"  
  
He sat down. "Yes. It was a terrible misfor-  
tune for me. Everything went wrong. All the  
men went wrong. I survived."  
  
Remembering the things one reads of it was diffi-  
cult to realise the true meaning of his answers. I  
ought to have seen at once--but I did not; so diffi-  
cult is it for our minds, remembering so much, in-  
structed so much, informed of so much, to get in  
touch with the real actuality at our elbow. And  
with my head full of preconceived notions as to  
how a case of "cannibalism and suffering at sea"  
should be managed I said--"You were then so  
lucky in the drawing of lots?"  
  
"Drawing of lots?" he said. "What lots? Do  
you think I would have allowed my life to go for  
the drawing of lots?"  
  
Not if he could help if, I perceived, no matter  
what other life went.
  
"It was a great misfortune. Terrible. Awful,"  
he said. "Many heads went wrong, but the best  
men would live."  
  
"The toughest, you mean," I said. He consid-  
ered the word. Perhaps it was strange to him,  
though his English was so good.
  
"Yes," he asserted at last. "The best. It was  
everybody for himself at last and the ship open to  
all."  
  
Thus from question to question I got the whole  
story. I fancy it was the only way I could that  
night have stood by him. Outwardly at least he  
was himself again; the first sign of it was the re-  
turn of that incongruous trick he had of drawing  
both his hands down his face--and it had its mean-  
ing now, with that slight shudder of the frame and  
the passionate anguish of these hands uncovering  
a hungry immovable face, the wide pupils of the  
intent, silent, fascinating eyes.
  
It was an iron steamer of a most respectable ori-  
gin. The burgomaster of Falk's native town had  
built her. She was the first steamer ever launched  
there. The burgomaster's daughter had christened  
her. Country people drove in carts from miles  
around to see her. He told me all this. He got the  
berth as what we should call a chief mate. He  
seemed to think it had been a feather in his cap;  
and, in his own corner of the world, this lover of  
life was of good parentage.
  
The burgomaster had advanced ideas in the  
ship-owning line. At that time not every one  
would have known enough to think of despatching  
a cargo steamer to the Pacific. But he loaded her  
with pitch-pine deals and sent her off to hunt for  
her luck. Wellington was to be the first port, I  
fancy. It doesn't matter, because in latitude 44 d  
south and somewhere halfway between Good Hope  
and New Zealand the tail shaft broke and the pro-  
peller dropped off.
  
They were steaming then with a fresh gale on  
the quarter and all their canvas set, to help the en-  
gines. But by itself the sail power was not enough  
to keep way on her. When the propeller went the  
ship broached-to at once, and the masts got  
whipped overboard.
  
The disadvantage of being dismasted consisted  
in this, that they had nothing to hoist flags on to  
make themselves visible at a distance. In the  
course of the first few days several ships failed to  
sight them; and the gale was drifting them out of  
the usual track. The voyage had been, from the  
first, neither very successful nor very harmonious.
There had been quarrels on board. The captain  
was a clever, melancholic man, who had no unusual  
grip on his crew. The ship had been amply pro-  
visioned for the passage, but, somehow or other,  
several barrels of meat were found spoiled on open-  
ing, and had been thrown overboard soon after  
leaving home, as a sanitary measure. Afterwards  
the crew of the Borgmester Dahl thought of that  
rotten carrion with tears of regret, covetousness  
and despair.
  
She drove south. To begin with, there had been  
an appearance of organisation, but soon the bonds  
of discipline became relaxed. A sombre idleness  
succeeded. They looked with sullen eyes at the hori-  
zon. The gales increased: she lay in the trough,  
the seas made a clean breach over her. On one  
frightful night, when they expected their hulk to  
turn over with them every moment, a heavy sea  
broke on board, deluged the store-rooms and spoiled  
the best part of the remaining provisions. It seems  
the hatch had not been properly secured. This in-  
stance of neglect is characteristic of utter discour-  
agement. Falk tried to inspire some energy into  
his captain, but failed. From that time he retired  
more into himself, always trying to do his utmost  
in the situation. It grew worse. Gale succeeded  
gale, with black mountains of water hurling them-  
selves on the Borgmester Dahl. Some of the men  
never left their bunks; many became quarrelsome.
The chief engineer, an old man, refused to speak  
at all to anybody. Others shut themselves up in  
their berths to cry. On calm days the inert steamer  
rolled on a leaden sea under a murky sky, or  
showed, in sunshine, the squalor of sea waifs, the  
dried white salt, the rust, the jagged broken  
places. Then the gales came again. They kept  
body and soul together on short rations. Once, an  
English ship, scudding in a storm, tried to stand  
by them, heaving-to pluckily under their lee. The  
seas swept her decks; the men in oilskins clinging  
to her rigging looked at them, and they made des-  
perate signs over their shattered bulwarks. Sud-  
denly her main-topsail went, yard and all, in a ter-  
rific squall; she had to bear up under bare poles,  
and disappeared.
  
Other ships had spoken them before, but at first  
they had refused to be taken off, expecting the as-  
sistance of some steamer. There were very few  
steamers in those latitudes then; and when they  
desired to leave this dead and drifting carcase, no  
ship came in sight. They had drifted south out of  
men's knowledge. They failed to attract the atten-  
tion of a lonely whaler, and very soon the edge of  
the polar ice-cap rose from the sea and closed the  
southern horizon like a wall. One morning they  
were alarmed by finding themselves floating  
amongst detached pieces of ice. But the fear of  
sinking passed away like their vigour, like their  
hopes; the shocks of the floes knocking against the  
ship's side could not rouse them from their apathy:
and the Borgmester Dahl drifted out again un-  
harmed into open water. They hardly noticed  
the change.
  
The funnel had gone overboard in one of the  
heavy rolls; two of their three boats had disap-  
peared, washed away in bad weather, and the davits  
swung to and fro, unsecured, with chafed rope's  
ends waggling to the roll. Nothing was done on  
board, and Falk told me how he had often listened  
to the water washing about the dark engine-room  
where the engines, stilled for ever, were decaying  
slowly into a mass of rust, as the stilled heart de-  
cays within the lifeless body. At first, after the  
loss of the motive power, the tiller had been thor-  
oughly secured by lashings. But in course of time  
these had rotted, chafed, rusted, parting one by  
one: and the rudder, freed, banged heavily to and  
fro night and day, sending dull shocks through the  
whole frame of the vessel. This was dangerous.
Nobody cared enough to lift a little finger. He  
told me that even now sometimes waking up at  
night, he fancied he could hear the dull vibrating  
thuds. The pintles carried away, and it dropped  
off at last.
  
The final catastrophe came with the sending off  
of their one remaining boat. It was Falk who had  
managed to preserve her intact, and now it was  
agreed that some of the hands should sail away into  
the track of the shipping to procure assistance.
She was provisioned with all the food they could  
spare for the six who were to go. They waited for  
a fine day. It was long in coming. At last one  
morning they lowered her into the water.
  
Directly, in that demoralised crowd, trouble  
broke out. Two men who had no business there  
had jumped into the boat under the pretence of  
unhooking the tackles, while some sort of squabble  
arose on the deck amongst these weak, tottering  
spectres of a ship's company. The captain, who  
had been for days living secluded and unapproach-  
able in the chart-room, came to the rail. He or-  
dered the two men to come up on board and men-  
aced them with his revolver. They pretended to  
obey, but suddenly cutting the boat's painter, gave  
a shove against the ship's side and made ready to  
hoist the sail.
  
"Shoot, sir! Shoot them down!" cried Falk--  
"and I will jump overboard to regain the boat."  
But the captain, after taking aim with an irreso-  
lute arm, turned suddenly away.
  
A howl of rage arose. Falk dashed into his cabin  
for his own pistol. When he returned it was too  
late. Two more men had leaped into the water, but  
the fellows in the boat beat them off with the oars,  
hoisted the boat's lug and sailed away. They were  
never heard of again.
  
Consternation and despair possessed the remain-  
ing ship's company, till the apathy of utter hope-  
lessness re-asserted its sway. That day a fireman  
committed suicide, running up on deck with his  
throat cut from ear to ear, to the horror of all  
hands. He was thrown overboard. The captain  
had locked himself in the chart-room, and Falk,  
knocking vainly for admittance, heard him recit-  
ing over and over again the names of his wife and  
children, not as if calling upon them or commend-  
ing them to God, but in a mechanical voice like an  
exercise of memory. Next day the doors of the  
chart-room were swinging open to the roll of the  
ship, and the captain had disappeared. He must  
during the night have jumped into the sea. Falk  
locked both the doors and kept the keys.
  
The organised life of the ship had come to an  
end. The solidarity of the men had gone. They  
became indifferent to each other. It was Falk who  
took in hand the distribution of such food as re-  
mained. They boiled their boots for soup to eke  
out the rations, which only made their hunger more  
intolerable. Sometimes whispers of hate were  
heard passing between the languid skeletons that  
drifted endlessly to and fro, north and south, east  
and west, upon that carcase of a ship.
  
And in this lies the grotesque horror of this som-  
bre story. The last extremity of sailors, overtaking  
a small boat or a frail craft, seems easier to bear,  
because of the direct danger of the seas. The con-  
fined space, the close contact, the imminent menace  
of the waves, seem to draw men together, in spite  
of madness, suffering and despair. But there was  
a ship--safe, convenient, roomy: a ship with beds,  
bedding, knives, forks, comfortable cabins, glass  
and china, and a complete cook's galley, pervaded,  
ruled and possessed by the pitiless spectre of star-  
vation. The lamp oil had been drunk, the wicks  
cut up for food, the candles eaten. At night she  
floated dark in all her recesses, and full of fears.
One day Falk came upon a man gnawing a splinter  
of pine wood. Suddenly he threw the piece of wood  
away, tottered to the rail, and fell over. Falk, too  
late to prevent the act, saw him claw the ship's  
side desperately before he went down. Next day  
another man did the same thing, after uttering hor-  
rible imprecations. But this one somehow man-  
aged to get hold of the broken rudder chains and  
hung on there, silently. Falk set about trying to  
save him, and all the time the man, holding with  
both hands, looked at him anxiously with his sunken  
eyes. Then, just as Falk was ready to put his hand  
on him, the man let go his hold and sank like a  
stone. Falk reflected on these sights. His heart  
revolted against the horror of death, and he said  
to himself that he would struggle for every pre-  
cious minute of his life.
  
One afternoon--as the survivors lay about on  
the after deck--the carpenter, a tall man with a  
black beard, spoke of the last sacrifice. There was  
nothing eatable left on board. Nobody said a  
word to this; but that company separated quickly,  
these listless feeble spectres slunk off one by one  
to hide in fear of each other. Falk and the car-  
penter remained on deck together. Falk liked  
the big carpenter. He had been the best man of  
the lot, helpful and ready as long as there was  
anything to do, the longest hopeful, and had  
preserved to the last some vigour and decision of  
mind.
  
They did not speak to each other. Henceforth  
no voices were to be heard conversing sadly on  
board that ship. After a time the carpenter tot-  
tered away forward; but later on, Falk going to  
drink at the fresh-water pump, had the inspiration  
to turn his head. The carpenter had stolen upon  
him from behind, and, summoning all his strength,  
was aiming with a crowbar a blow at the back of  
his skull.
  
Dodging just in time, Falk made his escape and  
ran into his cabin. While he was loading his re-  
volver there, he heard the sound of heavy blows  
struck upon the bridge. The locks of the chart-  
room doors were slight, they flew open, and the car-  
penter, possessing himself of the captain's revolver,  
fired a shot of defiance.
  
Falk was about to go on deck and have it out  
at once, when he remarked that one of the ports of  
his cabin commanded the approaches to the fresh-  
water pump. Instead of going out he remained in  
and secured the door. "The best man shall sur-  
vive," he said to himself--and the other, he rea-  
soned, must at some time or other come there to  
drink. These starving men would drink often to  
cheat the pangs of their hunger. But the carpen-  
ter too must have noticed the position of the port.
They were the two best men in the ship, and the  
game was with them. All the rest of the day Falk  
saw no one and heard no sound. At night he  
strained his eyes. It was dark--he heard a rustling  
noise once, but he was certain that no one could  
have come near the pump. It was to the left of his  
deck port, and he could not have failed to see a  
man, for the night was clear and starry. He saw  
nothing; towards morning another faint noise  
made him suspicious. Deliberately and quietly he  
unlocked his door. He had not slept, and had not  
given way to the horror of the situation. He  
wanted to live.
  
But during the night the carpenter, without at  
all trying to approach the pump, had managed to  
creep quietly along the starboard bulwark, and,  
unseen, had crouched down right under Falk's deck  
port. When daylight came he rose up suddenly,  
looked in, and putting his arm through the round  
brass framed opening, fired at Falk within a foot.
He missed--and Falk, instead of attempting to  
seize the arm holding the weapon, opened his door  
unexpectedly, and with the muzzle of his long re-  
volver nearly touching the other's side, shot him  
dead.
  
The best man had survived. Both of them had  
at the beginning just strength enough to stand on  
their feet, and both had displayed pitiless resolu-  
tion, endurance, cunning and courage--all the  
qualities of classic heroism. At once Falk threw  
overboard the captain's revolver. He was a born  
monopolist. Then after the report of the two  
shots, followed by a profound silence, there crept  
out into the cold, cruel dawn of Antarctic regions,  
from various hiding-places, over the deck of that  
dismantled corpse of a ship floating on a grey sea  
ruled by iron necessity and with a heart of ice--  
there crept into view one by one, cautious, slow, ea-  
ger, glaring, and unclean, a band of hungry and  
livid skeletons. Falk faced them, the possessor of  
the only fire-arm on board, and the second best man  
--the carpenter--was lying dead between him and  
them.
  
"He was eaten, of course," I said.
  
He bent his head slowly, shuddered a little, draw-  
ing his hands over his face, and said, "I had never  
any quarrel with that man. But there were our  
lives between him and me."  
  
Why continue the story of that ship, that story  
before which, with its fresh-water pump like a  
spring of death, its man with the weapon, the sea  
ruled by iron necessity, its spectral band swayed by  
terror and hope, its mute and unhearing heaven?--  
the fable of the Flying Dutchman with its conven-  
tion of crime and its sentimental retribution fades  
like a graceful wreath, like a wisp of white mist.
What is there to say that every one of us cannot  
guess for himself? I believe Falk began by going  
through the ship, revolver in hand, to annex all the  
matches. Those starving wretches had plenty of  
matches! He had no mind to have the ship set on  
fire under his feet, either from hate or from despair.
He lived in the open, camping on the bridge, com-  
manding all the after deck and the only approach  
to the pump. He lived! Some of the others lived  
too--concealed, anxious, coming out one by one  
from their hiding-places at the seductive sound of  
a shot. And he was not selfish. They shared, but  
only three of them all were alive when a whaler, re-  
turning from her cruising ground, nearly ran over  
the water-logged hull of the Borgmester Dahl,  
which, it seems, in the end had in some way sprung  
a leak in both her holds, but being loaded with deals  
could not sink.
  
"They all died," Falk said. "These three too,  
afterwards. But I would not die. All died, all!
under this terrible misfortune. But was I too to  
throw away my life? Could I? Tell me, captain?
I was alone there, quite alone, just like the others.
Each man was alone. Was I to give up my re-  
volver? Who to? Or was I to throw it into the  
sea? What would have been the good? Only the  
best man would survive. It was a great, terrible,  
and cruel misfortune."  
  
He had survived! I saw him before me as  
though preserved for a witness to the mighty truth  
of an unerring and eternal principle. Great beads  
of perspiration stood on his forehead. And sud-  
denly it struck the table with a heavy blow, as he  
fell forward throwing his hands out.
  
"And this is worse," he cried. "This is a worse  
pain! This is more terrible."  
  
He made my heart thump with the profound con-  
viction of his cries. And after he had left me  
alone I called up before my mental eye the image  
of the girl weeping silently, abundantly, patiently,  
and as if irresistibly. I thought of her tawny  
hair. I thought how, if unplaited, it would have  
covered her all round as low as the hips, like the  
hair of a siren. And she had bewitched him. Fancy  
a man who would guard his own life with the in-  
flexibility of a pitiless and immovable fate, being  
brought to lament that once a crowbar had missed  
his skull! The sirens sing and lure to death, but  
this one had been weeping silently as if for the pity  
of his life. She was the tender and voiceless siren  
of this appalling navigator. He evidently wanted  
to live his whole conception of life. Nothing else  
would do. And she too was a servant of that life  
that, in the midst of death, cries aloud to our senses.
She was eminently fitted to interpret for him its  
feminine side. And in her own way, and with her  
own profusion of sensuous charms, she also seemed  
to illustrate the eternal truth of an unerring prin-  
ciple. I don't know though what sort of principle  
Hermann illustrated when he turned up early on  
board my ship with a most perplexed air. It  
struck me, however, that he too would do his best  
to survive. He seemed greatly calmed on the sub-  
ject of Falk, but still very full of it.
  
"What is it you said I was last night? You  
know," he asked after some preliminary talk.
"Too--too--I don't know. A very funny word."  
  
"Squeamish?" I suggested.
  
"Yes. What does it mean?"  
  
"That you exaggerate things--to yourself.
Without inquiry, and so on."  
  
He seemed to turn it over in his mind. We went  
on talking. This Falk was the plague of his life.
Upsetting everybody like this! Mrs. Hermann  
was unwell rather this morning. His niece was  
crying still. There was nobody to look after the  
children. He struck his umbrella on the deck. She  
would be like that for months. Fancy carrying all  
the way home, second class, a perfectly useless girl  
who is crying all the time. It was bad for Lena  
too, he observed; but on what grounds I could not  
guess. Perhaps of the bad example. That child  
was already sorrowing and crying enough over the  
rag doll. Nicholas was really the least sentimental  
person of the family.
  
"Why does she weep?" I asked.
  
"From pity," cried Hermann.
  
It was impossible to make out women. Mrs. Her-  
mann was the only one he pretended to understand.
She was very, very upset and doubtful.
  
"Doubtful about what?" I asked.
  
He averted his eyes and did not answer this. It  
was impossible to make them out. For instance,  
his niece was weeping for Falk. Now he (Her-  
mann) would like to wring his neck--but then . . .
He supposed he had too tender a heart. "Frank-  
ly," he asked at last, "what do you think of what  
we heard last night, captain?"  
  
"In all these tales," I observed, "there is always  
a good deal of exaggeration."  
  
And not letting him recover from his surprise I  
assured him that I knew all the details. He begged  
me not to repeat them. His heart was too tender.
They made him feel unwell. Then, looking at his  
feet and speaking very slowly, he supposed that he  
need not see much of them after they were married.
For, indeed, he could not bear the sight of Falk.
On the other hand it was ridiculous to take home a  
girl with her head turned. A girl that weeps all  
the time and is of no help to her aunt.
  
"Now you will be able to do with one cabin only  
on your passage home," I said.
  
"Yes, I had thought of that," he said brightly,  
almost. "Yes! Himself, his wife, four children  
--one cabin might do. Whereas if his niece  
went . . ."  
  
"And what does Mrs. Hermann say to it?" I  
inquired.
  
Mrs. Hermann did not know whether a man of  
that sort could make a girl happy--she had been  
greatly deceived in Captain Falk. She had been  
very upset last night.
  
Those good people did not seem to be able to re-  
tain an impression for a whole twelve hours. I  
assured him on my own personal knowledge that  
Falk possessed in himself all the qualities to make  
his niece's future prosperous. He said he was glad  
to hear this, and that he would tell his wife. Then  
the object of the visit came out. He wished me to  
help him to resume relations with Falk. His niece,  
he said, had expressed the hope I would do so in my  
kindness. He was evidently anxious that I should,  
for though he seemed to have forgotten nine-tenths  
of his last night's opinions and the whole of his in-  
dignation, yet he evidently feared to be sent to the  
right-about. "You told me he was very much in  
love," he concluded slyly, and leered in a sort of bu-  
colic way.
  
"As soon as he had left my ship I called Falk on  
board by signal--the tug still lying at the anchor-  
age. He took the news with calm gravity, as  
though he had all along expected the stars to fight  
for him in their courses.
  
I saw them once more together, and only once--  
on the quarter-deck of the Diana. Hermann sat  
smoking with a shirt-sleeved elbow hooked over the  
back of his chair. Mrs. Hermann was sewing  
alone. As Falk stepped over the gangway, Her-  
mann's niece, with a slight swish of the skirt and a  
swift friendly nod to me, glided past my chair.
  
They met in sunshine abreast of the mainmast.
He held her hands and looked down at them, and  
she looked up at him with her candid and unseeing  
glance. It seemed to me they had come together  
as if attracted, drawn and guided to each other by  
a mysterious influence. They were a complete  
couple. In her grey frock, palpitating with life,  
generous of form, olympian and simple, she was in-  
deed the siren to fascinate that dark navigator, this  
ruthless lover of the five senses. From afar I  
seemed to feel the masculine strength with which  
he grasped those hands she had extended to him  
with a womanly swiftness. Lena, a little pale,  
nursing her beloved lump of dirty rags, ran to-  
wards her big friend; and then in the drowsy si-  
lence of the good old ship Mrs. Hermann's voice  
rang out so changed that it made me spin round in  
my chair to see what was the matter.
  
"Lena, come here!" she screamed. And this  
good-natured matron gave me a wavering glance,  
dark and full of fearsome distrust. The child ran  
back, surprised to her knee. But the two, stand-  
ing before each other in sunlight with clasped  
hands, had heard nothing, had seen nothing and  
no one. Three feet away from them in the shade  
a seaman sat on a spar, very busy splicing a strop,  
and dipping his fingers into a tar-pot, as if utterly  
unaware of their existence.
  
When I returned in command of another ship,  
some five years afterwards, Mr. and Mrs. Falk  
had left the place. I should not wonder if Schom-  
berg's tongue had succeeded at last in scaring Falk  
away for good; and, indubitably, there was a tale  
still going about the town of a certain Falk, owner  
of a tug, who had won his wife at cards from the  
captain of an English ship.
  
  
  
  
THE END

          The End

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